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L PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
LAUNCH OF SUE ROBINSON'S CAMPAIGN, ALP CANDIDATE FOR
CANBERRA, ERINDALE LEISURE CENTRE, CANB3ERRA
3 MARCH 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
It is a pleasure for me to be here with Sue Robinson, opening this campaign,
because we are at at the most about a year away from the election. And
let me assure you, I am going to make this the hardest year of John Howard's
life I can tell you that. And that shell of an organisation they call the Liberal
Party, we are going to put more stresses and strains on that creaky old thing,
on that remnant of Australia's failed upper class, that organisation that
thought it had it's dead hand on Australia and did for so long they will need
more than a bit of political engineering when we put some stresses and
strains on that thing. TFhey will need every technique they have got push
polling, the lot to try and save their miserable political hides. Because, here
we are John Howard he's here as the Liberal Party's third choice. John
Hewson took them to a poll, lost, and Howard contested an election against
him, and they said " no we don't want you" because it was only in 1989 that
they defeated him for Peacock, and then they had another chance, of course,
when John Hewson basically lost his way, and they knew they had to change,
and so they had to think long and hard about their future. And they said " no
we're not going back to the past, we can't go back to Howard, he's a man of
the past, his views are of the past, his whole mindset is of another age, we've
got to make a new break and go for a new team the Dream Team. Downer
and Costello." But they made a conscious decision to reject him. Of course,
Downer came to nothing, and they went around looking around, and they
have given us John Howard because he is now the only thing they have left.
And we're supposed to say " oh here he is reborn and remade". They have
got to be joking.
And I said in the Parliament a week or so ago, if you look at Australia now
an open, competitive, confident, country, much more of an inclusive society
than ever, and much more confident I think about itself I mean, we are
coming to terms with our identity, coming to terms with our indigenes, finding
a place in Asia, making the leap out there and you have got to say to
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yourself what possible use could Australia have at this time for a man who
describes himself as the most conservative leader the conservative parties
have ever had. Is this the time in our history as we come to the next
millennium to in the closing years of this century to say " well what we need
is somebody who, in the 1 970s was comfortable with the policies in the
1950s"? And he was. It's not mis-representing John Howard to say that
when he was a minister between 1977 and 1983, he was looking for his guide
to the Menzies years and the Menzies Cabinets, and the policies, and the
views. And I notice some commentator said last week which I thought was a
terribly pithy fine he said " when John Howard talks about one Australia, he
means one Wollstonecraft". And he is right the Edwardian houses, and the
picket fences, and the big off-street alignments, and the old trees, it's an
older version of old and central Canberra. That's his view of the world.
And I see him up yesterday it said it all against him he said " I'm against
anything in politics that's regarded as unacceptable by the Australian
community". In other words, " you tell me what you don't want, and that's what
I'll give you. You lead and I'll follow". It's a bit like the republic he said
" look, don't ask me about the republic ask me in 5 years time and I'll tell you
what I think about it. If I think the Australian people believe there should be a
change, then I will maybe modify my position" it is really code for " if that
Paul Keating will get out there and lead them and convince them, I might
follow. If he will lead, I will follow"'. It's just another version of the same thing
against anything in politics that is regarded as unacceptable". So, " if
push polling is unacceptable even though I tried it on if it's unacceptable, I
will give it away. If the community don't believe there ought to be a racial
basis in the selection of migrynts, I'll give that up. If they think our industrial
relations policy is too hot, I'll give that away, too". In other words, " I'll dovetail
in I won't lead, I will follow".
Now, yesterday was an instructive day about Australian politics. We are in
the Labor Party because we believe in things, and we get things done. We
have a touch with the society, I mean Sue described herself correctly as
somebody who likes people, who talks to people, is of the community, talks to
the community she is, as a Labor person, is and should be. We are a Party
that is in touch with the community. This is not true of the Coalition. The
Coalition has got no community sense. John Hewson walked out of that
Parliament the other day is he going to go away with any sense of sodality
with the Liberal Party? Any sense of longevity of his sort-of comradeship with
them? Well of course not. They just drift into the thing like a sort of a minor
business organisation, and they drift out of it again. In other words, there is
only one real political party in this country, and it is the Australian Labor
Party. That's right the other thing is an organisation that picks up the non-
Labor party, the non-Labor forces. that's how they always used to describe
themselves the non-Labor party. Always in the negative they know what
they are against, not sure what they are for. Or, as Arthur Calwell said' " the
Labor Party is a party of conviction, the others are parties of convenience".
And, here they are, now out of office for a very long period of time, no sense
of binding, no sense of cohesion, no touch with the community, and definitely
ILL 3
not a national party. Isn't it ironic, here's John Howard wandering around
Canberra in the shopping centre trying to address himself as a national
leader, but he leads a party which is not a national party. It is a party of six
state complexions. And when they are always talking and every one of
them does the same a new deal for the States means a bad deal for the
nation. That's the flip side of that coin a new deal for the States is just code
for saying a bad deal for the nation for the federation. And then we get all
this stuff federation was a set of arrangements to protect the States, It was
no such thing federation was an act of creation of the nation. That's what it
was. And this notion that we then fracture a nation of 18 million who have
been given the great oood fortune of inhipritinOi A crntinont of giving uo thio
unique place in the world, as one nation in a continent, to ourselves they
said " oh no we are not going to take that advantage we will slice it up like
a big sponge cake you know, cut it into 6 pieces, and they will all have their
taxing powers, and'they will all run their provincial governments" why?
Because they know the national character of the country, and the national
parliament, moves the common weal forward moves the society on and
that's what they are against. They are against these progressive changes
that's why they describe themselves as conservatives, and John Howard an
arch-conservative. So, it is ironic that here they are in the national capital
the seat of the nation campaigning for an important constituency, when their
policy is basically to try and fracture the place, and hand back powers to the
States, and remove that sense of nation, which we have all fought for, and
which we now have. And of course Canberra. if you look at the difference
with their icon Menzies who never gave taxing powers back to the States
and thought that one of his achievements was the building of Canberra this
mob actually want to smash Canberra. And if people think now they are
running through a sort of a d~ in-property cycle, well they have seen nothing
yet if the Liberals got hold of the national Parliament they would flatten this
place like a flap-jack. By the time they hop into the public service, and push
people onto individual wage contracts, and then cut the numbers, and cut the
Government spending while this is a more complex economy than it used to
be, and it has got now a private sector of some substance, give the public
sector a very large hit and the ricochet through this community I think
would be very obvious.
And just don't ask John Howard what he might do, look at what he did.
Between 1977 and 1983, the only building in this city under construction was
Parliament House. The construction sector was absolutely dead dormant.
There was no building, the housing sector had dried up, the business
community was shrivelling away and moving back to Sydney and Melbourne
this is what they did between 1977 and 1983. Now, this Government is a
growth government we believe in growth. And that growth has, in a very full
measure in the nation, attached itself to the ACT. And over these years
1983 til now there has been a lot of growth in the ACT, a lot of employment
growth, and a lot of prosperity and that is what this Government will
continue to provide. We are sort of going through a reality by-pass at the
moment we have got 5.5% GOP growth, and 2.5% inflation. But you have
these little pumped up tories running around saying " oh, the mess in the
economy" a mess? 5.5% growth and 2.5% inflation they have never seen
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numbers like that in their history. 4.5% productivity growth, 500,000 jobs
since the last election, 4% employment growth a year we are the fastest
growing country in terms of employment in the Western world. In terms of
growth and inflation, we are on the top of the league table of the 21 member
states of the OECD. But, all this doom-saying they go around with John
Hewson was telling us at the end of the last election campaign that we were
going into a double-dip recession, then a depression. And John Howard
endorsed his remarks about the recession.
And here we are now growing as we have been so strongly, and the
challenge for us is to make this growth sustainable and to keep inflation in
its place, after having put it there after so much effort and we all know what
that's about it's about wages, it's about having a relationship with the trade
unions, it's about our Accord, it's about our whole co-operative model these
are the things we can do and these are things which are now happening. But
the Current Account Deficit is high for the moment it is absolutely laden with
capital goods. We are a country of 18 million we don't produce capital
goods, we don't produce mainframe computers, we don't produce the big
pneumatic or digitally operated machine tools which come from countries like
the United States and Germany, so whenever we start adding to that capital
stock after a few years of paucity of investment, of course this will reflect in
the Current Account. But are we going to build our capacity and keep on
growing, or do we lay dead in the water? So they are saying " oh hang on,
let's chop that off", and we say " all right, chop it off but you chop off all the
equipment that lets you fight the battle". And it's just worth reminding people
-as I did in the House yesterday of a few things: 10 years ago we were
exporting 14% of our product, this year it is 22%, which puts us right in the
middle of the OECD league 41 proportion of ) xports to GDP. Our capacity to
service our debt has fallen that is, the proportion of our exports which we
devote to paying the interest and outgoings on external liabilities was 21%
of our exports, and is now 11 In fact the numbers were out today they
confirm it again at 11 In other words, that growth in exports and our
capacity to service our debt and pay our way like anyone's capacity to
service a mortgage you know, you say " well, I have got a mortgage of
$ 1 50,00 that's pretty big". But if earn $ 150,000 a year, then you are fine.
So it all depends on your income. And our income has risen. In other words,
if you are in a problem, you fight your way out of it you invest and work your
way out of it. But they want to close it down " the growth is too much", they
say. Their charge against us in the election was ' not enough growth and not
enough employment", so the Government earnestly and honestly said " OK,
that will be our priority growth and employment". We were re-hired by the
country to get the place growing, and to get employment going again, and we
have done that. They said, " oh no, that wasn't the trick at all we didn't really
mean that, what we really meant was that we need really a pool of
unemployment around to keep downward pressure on wages, and we don't
want to see the Current Account moving up". This is Howard this is a
person who presided over the industrial archaeology of the 1 970s, when the
factories closed, when that other great economic genius John Stone was
saying " you can't have a competitive manufacturing sector sitting beside an
internationally competitive primary export sector. If you want minerals and
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agriculture, you can't have manufacturing". Now this was the creed this was
around he signed Howard up to this.
So, here we are, with a burgeoning primary export sector, and a burgeoning
manufacturing sector manufacturing exports have tripled in the last
years. The fastest growing component of our exports are elaborately
transformed goods, and we now have a very large internationally traded
sector in services which didn't exist when John Howard was the Treasurer. It
has all happened because of us. And yet here we are, with 5.5% growth and
inflation, and he's saying " No good. No good", and in Europe you say
" what is the average growth rate in the European Union?" and
maybe 2.25% next year." And you say " is that right?" " Oh yeah". " What's
your employment growth rate like?" " 0.75% 1 what's Australia's?"
They have got to be joking. Now, I know all new leaders get a free ride for a
while, but faced up to a bit of fact and argument other than rhetoric does
anybody think there is a better substitute than these sorts of policies? Of
closing the place down to a low growth economy again because a low
growth economy simply means those who are doing well stay doing well, and
those not doing so well do less well. And that sort of unfairness is what we
don't need.
And I'll tell you this about Howard he stands for nothing. He was a weak
Treasurer, and he was a weak Leader, and he has no policies. And we saw it
yesterday with the Aboriginal Land Fund. They said... . he had a chance he
was out putting the spin all around the galleries, on every radio station, doing
that sort of Jimmny Cricket number, bouncing up all over the place " yabba
yabba yabba yabba yabba, yabba yabba yabba yabba" everywhere. As if the
glib, clever line will.. he re~ ons he can say " yes" but mean " no" and
someone reading the transcript can't quite work out what he means... . he was
trained in the John Carrick school of cynical politics. This is where push
polling came from, and all those other sorts of things in his days, he had the
big red arrows from China, and they were coming to get us in the sampans,
and remember all that? And he was Howard's mentor. And this is the sort of
cynicism that you get from this guy he had a chance to say to the Senate
and to his party " look, you selected me because you have got nobody else,
and these are my terms I want to make a new start with Aboriginal Australia,
I don't believe we can be an inclusive society without that happening. So I
am out of all these amendments that my predecessor was going to consider
in the Senate", trying to suggest for instance that we can make judgements
about the degrees of dispossession, or try to invest individuals with the land
and then give them the right to sell it, so that they actually leech away any
fabric of an inheritance in land. All these mangy tricks that they wanted to
write into the Bill. He could have said ' look, I am a lucky fellow, I have been
given a second chance in public life simply by dent of hanging around long
enough, and at least I am going to do the right thing and start clean.' And
what does he do? He sends the Bill back from the Senate full of all of these
compromising provisions. And some people said to us, ' well, look, maybe
you better take the Bill as it is, at least it is a Land Fund Bill.' To which we
said ' well, do the Aboriginals really I mean we have got the Native Title Act
and Mabo, but it is really available to people who still have a traditional
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association with the land. For those dispossessed, the Land Fund was a
central ingredient to justice in land for Aboriginal people. So, if we let this
through it is just another shabby compromise, so we said ' no, no we won't'.
So we put the second Bill, the new Bill back into the House on Tuesday, our
original Bill with some of the procedural amendments we were able to accept
from the Senate rejecting all of the tawdry ones and said to Howard ' knock
this over and we have got a double dissolution trigger and we will propose at
an election that this issue be resolved by a joint sitting of both Houses there
after, giving the Labor Party the option of a double dissolution. He went
straight to water. He goes around saying ' oh, I'll have an election any time'.
Pigs he will. And, all this puffery in the polls he knows it is just like a little
helium balloon, you stick a pin in it and away it goes. He knows in the hard
tack of an erection that we are going to be right on his tail, so he didn't want
to be fighting any elections now.
So, he dropped off. But, instead of dropping off saying ' well, look, I will let the
Government's Bill through', trying to suggest he did turn over a new leaf with
Aboriginal Australia, what did he say ' I'll let it through, but if we become the
Government we will put all the bad amendments back into it'. Because they
don't want to give black people land. That is the long and short of it, You
can take all the science out of this and in the end what sits underneath it is a
deeply seated prejudice against them,
So, don't doubt this Government's strength or its principles or its resolve or its
sense of purpose or its capacity because we will, as we have, take on all of
these big block problems in Australia. Be it Australian competitiveness, be it
opening Australia up, be it the rights and prerogatives of Aboriginal people,
be it the status of women, you name it, we are the ones that have been doing
it and those opposed to us still stand for the same old tripe, the same old
conservative nonsense that they have always stood for.
I said in Caucus the other day, think of some issues in the last 15 years. On
the environment Howard said when he was Leader that the states would be
left to decide the future of forests and wilderness areas. On Aborigines, you
can't think of one positive thing he has ever said or done for them. On the
republic he is the Colonel Blimp of the Liberal Party, the staunch monarchist.
On Asia his only position was that he thought too many Asians were coming
to Australia and that there would be a social backlash against them. On
South Africa he corrected me the other day by saying ' no, it is not true that
Nelson Mandela would still be in goal if it were left to my view. I called for his
release in 1986'. That is 25 years after he was goaled. He opposed the ANC
and he opposed the sanctions. I mean, this guy is from another age and here
they have this obscurantist being proposed as the leader that can take this
modern, confident country of ours into the next century. Well, of course, it
would be a terrible shame for Australia and an unjust thing to do to the place.
I want to make a couple of extra points about the ACT and the labour market.
I made this point yesterday about their industrial relations policies. A week
ago Peter Reith said we now believe in an evolutionary policy. We believe in
gradualism and incrementalism. That's so, the average person says ' oh, well,
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they have changed their tune a bit. Before they had individual wage
contracts and they were going to slot us all, now they are just going to move
on something and they believe in minimums.' But, when John Hewson
resigned the other day and the speech that John Howard made following his
departure he said ' well, there has been great changes in Australia' said
Howard and he gave the Government credit for them in opening up the
financial markets, in opening up the product markets with lower tariffs, he
said ' but, the great reform yet to be done is in the labour market'. So, the
week earlier Reith is saying ' don't worry, it is incrementalism and gradualism.'
Howard is saying ' we have got the big block buster policy change for you.'
Now, it is one or the other and we all know what it is. It is the big one,
The thing you have got to know about the labour market is that it is not like a
pool, it is more like a river. There are people changing their jobs every year.
Last year 1.7 million Australians changed their jobs or entered the workforce
out of eight million. When they do, they lose all of the award protections,
they lose overtime, penalty rates, and it means that a lot of people in society
are going to lose $ 100-$ 150 a week on low and middle incomes by losing
those capacities and they will take either the contract or they won't be
employed. So, if you look at that policy after four or five years, most
Australians would be on contracts and they would be out of any enterprise
bargaining framework or any set of award minimum protections which have
got, of course, ajustments there for cost of living or protection for cost of living
and the maintenance of these other things like overtime et cetera.
Now, interestingly, in the ACT, 15 per cent of the labour force about 25 to
30,000 people change their jobs each year or people join the labour market
from school. So, give that over the life of one Parliament, you are talking
about 75,000-90,000 people. Now, they will have the guts cut away from
their working conditions and that will mean, of course, that if you start putting
pressure on the whole industrial relations system it starts to degrade in that
respect. Couple that with, of course, the fact that they are going to cut
government spending and cut aggregate employment and you can see how
quickly that would change the society here. Yet, they are running around
saying to what is a very large public service town ' look, basically our policy is
to cut you to ribbons and to put you on contracts'. And people are supposed
to say ' oh, thanks for that, we will give you a vote, thanks a million.'
We saw Kennett do it with the Victorian public service and we would see
Reith and Howard do the same.
So, the thing is, I think, that in looking at this election I mean, here we are
standing on the very platform that we said we would in 1993 at the election
growth with employment, with productivity, with the country growing. And, we
have done all the things we have said. We said we would do justice to the
Mabo decision, we have done it with the Native Title legislation, yesterday we
did it with the Land Fund legislation.
They are out there now on the environment trying to represent themselves as
being in some way, I mean, they have opposed as I said the Gordon below
TEL: 3. Mar .951 1~ LN o
Franklin would have been flooded had it been left to John Howard and the
Coalition. All the great changes in the environment we have made they have
opposed and McLachlan came out as their environment spokesman saying
he is opposed to clear felling of trees in this country and immediately Fischer
came out and said we won't have a bar of that policy, in fact that will not be
our policy, he said, very firmly.
So, they have no credentials and, I think, it is very important for people in this
country to know that the only party that has the interest, the commitment and
the strength to protect the environment is the Australian Labor Party there is
no other. Now, we have seen the two Greens from Western Australia up to
their chicanery on the Land Fund Bill as they were in the Native Title
legislation. They are not going to be doing anything for the environment and
Bob Brown and the Wilderness Society, there are some good people in the
Wilderness Society, but Bob Brown is now running for a seat in the Senate
because he thinks he can play corner politics with the continuing low quotas
that the Senate is offering under the proportional representation system.
So, people have got to put a big discount through the things he says. He try's
to misrepresent my position and he knows that without my support the
Daintree reservation which Graham Richardson put together wouldn't be
there. In th e last year, just in the last year, this Government has put aside for
ever, for this country, Shoalwater Bay one of the most attractive areas on
the Australian east coast, one of the most attractive areas in the world
Jervis Bay in New South Wales, by spending $ 30 million locating the
armaments depot to Victoria so that we could leave that pristine. And, we put
million in the Budget to buy back the hole in the heart of the Daintree that
disgraceful subdivision Bjelke Petersen let through which is sitting there now
in the forest, but all cut up into quarter acre lots, to buy that back. No credit
did we get from that none and we have got this year's quota of logs and we
are now seeking to establish the coupes and the quality in the stands and we
have had a deluge of attacks on us by people who, frankly, should know
better and who want to reach the same position we want to reach and that is
to see that we are preserving our best stands of trees, our pristine forests,
but at the same time having a sustainable forest products industry.
These are things governments have to do. A lot of noisy people on the
outside think they can do other things, but governments have to do serious
things and we can do it. So, our environmental credentials won't be found
wanting and I don't think can you imagine any year when the Liberal's put
away something like Shoalwater Bay and Jervis Bay or protected Daintree,
just in one year. This ; Government has got a long and, I think, proud
environmental record and one of the things that we have never really had
adequate credit for is the saving of Antarctica. Let me just say one little thing
because Bob Brown runs around saying ' I saved the Gordon below Franklin'.
Well, I was principally involved in securing the protection of Antarctica. Let
me just tell you a little story.
In 1986 I went to see Michel Rocard, who had become a friend of mine over
the years and he had just become Prime Minister of France and I called on
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him six weeks after he became Prime Minister and we discussed the
Matignon Accords in New Caledonia. At the end of it he said President
Mitterand and I want to do something next year of an international flavour to
celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revorution. Not something simply
French, but something international. He talked about an environmental
protection agency and I said to him ' look, it is a good idea, but we will be both
old men before we ever see it, you know, getting a world environmental
protection agency together.' He said ' well, as a fraternal party you might
think about what we might do'. I said ' well, I have got an idea right now, but I
must tell you that I am in a minority of two in my Cabinet about it', and my
sole supporter was Peter Cook and he said ' what's that?' I said ' it is not to
sign the Minerals Convention in Antarctica'. So, he asked his officials when
they were going to sign this and they were to sign it in seven days from the
time of our conversation. This came from the OPEC oil price rises when they
decided to put a Minerals Convention into Antarctica to go drilling for oil, but
since the oil pressure had gone, the foreign affairs departments of the world
kept grinding away with the Minerals Convention. And, I said ' they will make
a mess of Antarctica and were you to join us we have a reasonable chance of
stopping it and put Antarctica away for 50 years as a wilderness park'. Now, I
said ' I would have to convince Bob ( Hawke) about this, but if you give him a
suitably flattering letter, I'm sure I could get him into it'. He did and then it
was the Bob and Michel show from there on, but we gradually worked on the
Japanese and the Americans and we saved Antarctica from being ripped to
pieces. So, when Bob Brown says he saved the Gordon below Franklin, we say ' yes,
and we saved a continent'. Don't worry, we will have the political amalgam
back together, all the people in this country that have got some ticker. I
noticed at the Australian Creative Fellowship Awards recently, John Olson
said ' look, there is only two kinds of people lovers and others', and we all
know what to think of the others don't we'. Now, the lovers are the people
that have got an interest in this country, that have got good will towards their
fellows, a sense of compassion, a sense of inclusion, a sense of commitment.
That is where we are. We are on the lovers side of Australian politics and we
know where the others are.
So, let's kick off a long hard year for John Howard with this campaign
opening today. And, say to Sue Robinson that with courage and decency
and style she has washed off all this dreadful unAustralian behaviour with
push polling and that the worst instincts of the Liberal party won't get the
better of her. And, they won't get the better of the people of the seat of
Canberra either and let them know that if the Liberals get up that this won't be
the city that it is now and it won't be the country t -' at it is now and that there
can be no substitute to continuing the great reformation of Australia its
economy, its society, its place in the world. And, while the going gets a bit
hard on or -, asions and it gets a bit complex we must, we owe it to ourself to
press on and we don't want to go back down the time tunnel to reactionary
politics and one Australia and one Wollstonecraft and one Menzies and one
dead hand, we want to keep this progressive change coming through.
I am happy to begin this fight for this election with Sue Robinson and a
victory here in Canberra because the thing we must know in this country, you
get social progress by victories, like we did in the Land Fund Bill yesterday.
You get social progress by wins, you don't get it by unseemly compromises,
So, let's not compromise here in the ACT and lets have an unambiguous
victory for the lovers in Australian politics and we will leave the others to their
miserable brand of politics and their miserable approach to this country.
Best wishes to you, Sue, and the campaign.
ends