06/ 03 ' 95 15: 05 % Y06 273 2923 MP SSOFC
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
ADDRESS AT THE PEARCE RAAF BASE, PERTH, 17 FEBRUARY 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
I would like to say how much I have enjoyed coming here and having a look
at the base. I have had a long interest in the development of the Australian
Airforce and from my first years in Parliament 25 years ago I used to go to the
Commonwealth aircraft factories and the Government aircraft factories in
Melbourne when we were still putting together the Mirage and the Macchi and
I have taken an interest in the defence procurement issues over the years
and I am always, I suppose, keen to see the new types of equipment and
listen to what people have to say about them, about their capability and about
which particular aircraft they like and why. Even though we can took at a
technical specification of what they can do there is always that pilot feet that
you can only get by talking to people who fly them and use them.
Here in Perth, this is a major base in Australia for flying training and it is
another one of those things which, I think, impacts well upon the economy of
Western Australian. That is, the fact that we have a substantial defence
presence here in Western Australia, both maritime and the presence here at
Pearce and this is good for the economy and given the fact we have now
transcontinental east coast and west coast defence bases and bases across
the north of Australia, we can see the sophistication of the Australian
Defence Force and its capabilities becoming evident to anybody that takes
even a cursory interest.
I am particularly delighted to see our friends here from Singapore with the
Singapore Flying Training School. We are delighted to be able to be hosts to
Singapore in the area of flying training and, I think, this has to be a
forerunner of further defence co-operation between us and that we can in the
future see with not simply the amenity of this field and the facilities here for
Singapore, not just getting them to work right, but getting the relationships
working completely and fully and co-operatively between the members of our
airforce and your own. This means, I think, we can then take those next
steps because we are both members of the Five Power Defence
Arrangements, we have a lot in common we do joint exercises together
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Now this year we are celebrating remembering the 50th Anniversary of the
end of the Second World War. VP Day Victory in the Pacific, and of course
in Europe it is VE Day Victory in Europe: 1945 1995, half a century later.
But it is not only a celebration of the democracies over fascism, it is a
celebration of the combined community values and effort of that period of the
War. We are celebrating the fact that as a nation we did something together,
and they're celebrating in Europe that as nations they did things together.
So, it is the action of communities together that bring the memorable social
phases, and the memorable social changes. So that is why we say we move
forward together we have values and considerations of one another, as a
group, as a community and it is these cultural values which mark out the
quality of our social democracy.
So that goes to things like giving young people a chance to a full education,
opportunity, inclusion. So university for instance and we just had Mr
Flannagan tell us about Murdoch. When I was a young man, Universities
were there for basically an elite a small elite. Now, as result of the policies
of this Government, it's more generally available but I will come to that in a
moment. And it is those opportunities, and the other thing about our social
democracy is to say that in all of these things like access and equity access
and fairness to health, to education, to aged-care, to support for the young
that we have a community which has something nice about it something
sweet about it that isn't about only giving the values to the values to the
smart ones, or the rich ones and leaving the poor ones or the
disadvantaged ones behind. In other words, again the sense of inclusion,
the sense of community. Now, that's what we have a unique chance to do,
and one of the reasons we can do it is because in this country we have
strong rates of employment. In Western Australia, in the last year, we have
had 5% employment growth. If we compare that, say, to any European state,
they would be having 1 So you have got this huge growth and employment
coming from the recovery which the Federal Government has sought to
induce. And in the economy in this state this year it grew 10%. Now, you
may say " well, is that a lot?". WellI I say to you that it's a real lot. Because of
we kept it up for 10 years, we would on 10 years replicate that which has
taken 150-200 years to produce. So, if you look at Western Australia over a
century and a half, it has taken us that long to get this big, but in one year we
have got 10% bigger. So if we did it for 10 years, we would actually
reproduce the whole thing in terms of wealth in 10 years. That phenomenal
growth, and phenomenal opportunity and phenomenal employment is the
thing which gives us egalitarian values. Because you can't believe that you
have a right to that sort of society without everybody having a right to a job.
So, we have this great chance I can't think of any time when any young
group of West Australians would have ever faced a period as exciting as this,
or with opportunities like this. We're now for the first time in our history
closest to the fastest growing markets of the world, that's in the Asia Pacific
near us. When I was your age the markets we sold to were Western Europe
and North America. We were a long way from the markets of the world. Now,
the markets have shifted, and two-thirds of all we produce goes to Asia, and
is right on our doorstep. So, all of you have that opportunity which I didn't
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have, or most of us up on this stage didn't have, and as well as that, you have
got the opportunities of education to go out into a clever country and take
clever opportunities here and abroad. Ten years ago, only 3 young people in
completed secondary school. That was an appalling statistic for any
country that prided itself as being a smart country with good opportunities
only three in ten completed secondary school. This year, it is 8 in 10, which
has been a revolution in Australian education, and 40% of those young
people are streaming their way into University. Forty per cent did also in
1983, but it was 40% of 3 in 10, not 40% of 8 in 10. This Government has put
around the country the equivalent of 16 Universities, the size of the major
city universities, to take up the extra intake. And now we're reforming
vocational education or TAFE through the Australian National Training
Authority because the numbers speak for themselves. If 40% are going to
university, what were the other 60% doing what were the majority doing?
Well only a small proportion were being trained. But if we can train young
Australians, and give them the chance through university, or through TAFE,
then you could participate more fully in this country, and you can go out into
the world and do it too. Now, none of that was available some of that was
available to me but not all of that was because we never had these markets
in this proximity to Asia, in terms of our trade, at that time.
The other great change that makes this possibility, I think, the excitement of a
social democracy of quality, is the participation of young women in education
the high participation of young women in education. And it is a matter of
great pleasure to me that in this year more young women have gone to
universities than young men. Because always, it was young men who had
that title, by a long margin. It is a measure of how far we have come. And
the notion used to be, in families, that the boys or the young men were the
ones who had to be the breadwinners, and where the opportunities and the
effort and the family effort was given, but not so young women, or the girls.
Now, there is something intrinsically unfair about that blatantly unfair. Why
shouldn't the life opportunities and the excitement that this country can offer
be equally available to women as to men, to young women as to young men.
So, this huge participation in secondary schools from young women, and now
them going into university is a measure of out social democracy. It is a
measure of our fairness it's an essential fairness. It is a measure of the
opportunities we must extend to our community as a whole.
So, if you look at where we have come 10 years ago this was basically a
country locked up by what are called tariffs protection for manufacturing.
Western Australia was a mining and agricultural state we sold minerals
because the Japanese needed it for steel. Had they not needed it for steel,
we wouldn't have sold minerals. We would have basically been relying on
agriculture with a few services in the city. The employment opportunities
would have been vastly limited the chances of a full participation in
education would have been simply a dream. But now you can see that
because this Government has opened Australia up taken away the tariff
barriers, opened up the financial markets we now have in Western Australia
sophisticated manufacturing yesterday I was at a business that makes alloy
steel for the Pratt and Whitney Jet Engine company for Boeing 747s. Could
you imagine that there 10 years ago? Or making world-classed aluminium
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ferries for the world? It just wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. Or a
sophisticated tourist industry, with high quality tourism services? All of these
things have come because Australia has opened up and we are richer and
smarter and better for it. But we can't drive this sort of change without an
educated, trained population. And you know I gave some numbers for
Germany the other day in Germany, for instance which is a highly
developed country the information base of manufacturing lasts 5 years and
then it is obsolete. And in information technology it lasts 2 years and then it
is obsolete. So every 5 years, or 2 years, you have got to turn it over. This
will be the same in Australia, which means that training will be the essence
training and education will be the essence of your life opportunities, as
technological change speeds up. But we are ready, and we have got the
effort and the commitment and the financial commitment to give you that
education, and that change.
But one of the other thing I think it is important for you to know is this: I have
always felt somewhat sad for young people who try and get their tertiary
entrance examination, and then find they miss and they lose out on a tertiary
education. Or worse, they have no vocational education. What we have in
place now, with the Australian National Training Authority and vocational
education or TAFE, is that you can go off to TAFE and do a course, and get
accredited units to return to the mainstream of a university campus. In other
words, it's not sudden death it's not a case of missing the TEE and missing
out for life you can actually stream your way back as a mature student a
couple of years later. You can say " look, I didn't do as well as I should have
done with the Western Australian Certificate of Education, I haven't got my
TEE, but what I'll do is I'll get into TAFE, and I'll get those marks, and I'll get
that accreditation, and I'll go back to university". Or, alternatively, you will
say ' look, in TAFE there are better courses for my place in the workforce than
there are for me in university, so I am going to get a Diploma from a TAFE
college". Now what we're trying to do the Federal Government is to keep
the resources up to the university system and with the states to TAFE, so
that you have got that chance. It is one thing us saying to you stay in
secondary school, complete Year 12, but then after that we haven't got
enough places for you. What we have had to do is build not only your
participation in school, but the places for you. Now all that is there, and we
have seen this great change ahead of us where you can participate.. . where
you can go straight into university or to TAFE, or to TAFE and work your way
back to university, or to open-learning and learn at home and those of you
who have got a PC and given the fact that as we extend the fibre-optic cable
network we are going to have PCs in many Australian homes you will be
able to do the open-learning course at home. And that won't be for people
just in remote areas, but actually for people in cities as well. So the
educational opportunities are going to be profound, and then if you can get a
link to somewhere like Murdoch University or the Maritime Industries, or the
Navy, where you have got a particular focus as you have here in
Rockingham on the Maritime Industry, and work associated with it and study
and learning associated with it, then you have got another string to your bow
another life opportunity. PM PRESS OFFICEQ~ 006/ 007
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So, let me recap on all that. What do we face? We face a high growth, high
opportunity country with low inflation. You have got opportunities in school
and in post-school education that no generation before you ever had. You
have got proximity to the fastest growing markets in the world, you have got
the chance of learning another language in school, you have got a chance of
using that language in Indonesia or Malaysia or Hong Kong or in China or in
Japan or in any of these countries around us, and you can do it in the
context of knowing that when you leave school, that huge employment growth
that is just coming through is going to give you a fairly good chance of finding
an interesting job. And doing it in the context of a society that cares about
itself and has mutual commitments to one another where we actually say " if
you're sick, we will look after you, if you're aged, we look after you, if you're
from a low-income family, we give you income support. If you're a young
person, we encourage you to stay in school, if you drop out, we give you
training and work opportunities. If you are long-term unemployed, we pick
you up and give you a job subsidy and we get you back into work'. In other
words, policies that produce a society that has a kindliness about it, and a
sense of decency about it.
I think one of the great challenges for Australia is to infuse our young people
with that sense of excitement to let you believe that the future is as exciting
as I think it is. And to stay that we won't let any of our young people down,
and we won't let them drop out of the system. Because a country that doesn't
love its children has no soul at all. So, this is the future we are speaking of
for you one which is about you, because the rest of us most of us we've
had our corner of the action already, and their is already someone ready to
pension us off, particularly in public life. Mind you, we resist it and fight it, but
the fact is the wave that matters is you, and that's why your faith in Australia,
and its ideals, become central to the sort of life you will have in the future. It
is my pleasant duty here today to not simply talk to you, and have a chance to
meet you, but to also underline this link you have with the Maritime Industries
and with the Navy, and just to remind you of what a great opportunity that is.
Now, Richard Flannagan asked me to unveil a plaque to make this point, and
remember this event, and that for me, of course, is going to be a great
pleasure, and which I'll do in a moment. But before I do, let me say the
greatest pleasure here today for me is to talk to you because I always look
forward to every opportunity to talk to young people, because you have got
an open mind, you're hard thinkers, you're hard assessors you are not
interested in nonsense and fairy floss, you want some real facts and some
argument, and you're listening and you're hoping, and what more could any
national leader want? Thank you very much indeed, and I will now unveil the
plaque. ends. IQj007/ 007