PM Transcripts

Transcripts from the Prime Ministers of Australia

Keating, Paul

Period of Service: 20/12/1991 - 11/03/1996
Release Date:
30/09/1995
Release Type:
Speech
Transcript ID:
9774
Document:
00009774.pdf 10 Page(s)
Released by:
  • Keating, Paul John
ADDRESS TO THE NSW ALP CONFERENCE, SYDNEY TOWN HALL

TEL ELO: c2t 95
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
ADDRESS TO THE NSW ALP CONFERENCE, SYDNEY TOWN HALL
SEPTEMBER 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
Well, thanks very much for a very enthusiastic welcome I appreciate It. I
think it's our about 106th Conference, and we do keep keeping on here we
do keep keeping on. But Terry, Chris, Della, Anthony, my Parliamentary
colleagues and friends one and all. I am very pleased to be back here I
started my political life here all those years ago at a Conference in the early
1960s. And 30 years later we are still running Australia we have a national
Government, and a Labor Government in NSW. And this Parliament, these 3
years, arguably, have been our most valuable. When we won In 1993, and
we stuck itto the Tories in the sweetest victory of all, we opened up an
opportunity for ourselves and for Australia that consolidated the work and the
gains and the imagination of the 1980s. We have consolidated the recovery
to now the longest growth phase in Australia's post-War history. The next
national accounts will be the 17th consecutive quarter of growth a national
record. We have returned the economy to strong job growth we have had,
since the election, 680,000 jobs. And I said recently it took us from 1788 to
1983 to get to 6 million, and we have added 10% to that in 2 1/ 2 years. It's
way beyond our commitment of half a million we reached that, in fact, after 2
1/ 4 years. And in this process of consolidated growth, and strong job growth,
we have consolidated low inflation we have an inflation rate around 2 3%,
after the Tories, of course, couldn't' get it under double digits. So we have
fulfilled, I think, the most solemn pledge we made at that election, which was
all about growth and employment. And that pledge was to get the economy
back to growth, to pull dlown unemployment to not leave the unemployed
behind. They were the solemn commitments the hardest to meet, and they
are the ones we have met the most. As I say, we have done it all by breaking
the back of that pernicious disease Australian inflation and done it in a
way, also, which now has the current account deficit trending down.
Three months ago, of course, it was turning at $ 3 billion, and we had all the
hand-wringing, and the Liberals with their debt truck and the rest yesterday
it came in at $ 1.5 billion, half of what it was 2 months ago, and below the
: 20 No. 001 P. 01/ 16

TEL 2
figure of just over $ 2 billion the previous month. So, we have got it trending
down. Not in 12 years have we faced a better scenario 4% GDP growth, 4%
employment growth, 2-3% inflation, the Current Account trending down, and
exports booming. And we have been given the time for the transition to a
new labour market. In these 3 years, Laurie Brereton Introduced the new IR
legislation, and we have made that change from the most centralised of wage
fixing systems, to, now, an organic one where the only place out there in the
market place the only place where our unions will survive, the only place
where they will have the opportunity to go and do the things they need to do
to represent their members, and not be held hostage to some Conservative
Government of the future at whatever time it wants to put a knife through the
heart of the centralised wage fixing system. We have built a labour market
that keeps our competitiveness, keeps the jobs coming, keeps inflation low.
And while we have been doing all of that, we have moved the Budget back to
surplus, we dramatically expanded superannuation so that all of us will have
a better standard of living in retirement. By the year 2002 which is just 7
years away every Australian person will have 15% minimum savings in
superannuation, which will dramatically increase their benefits In retirement,
and while doing it, produce a huge pool of national savings which will
underpin a much higher level of investment in Australia, and lower our
reliance upon overseas savings and overseas debt.
And to underline these achievements to cap them off, to finish them off, to
polish them off we have strengthened our identity in our culture. We have
righted the wrong of terra nulus with our indigenes, we have given them
back that part of the remaining land that was always theirs, we built a
relationship of quality and trust with the countries of the region, and a
relationship which is without precedent In Australia, between Australia and
these places. We have threaded together the most ambitious free-trade
undertaking in the world, which is APEC, and we have laid down the blueprint
for an Australian republic. And we have done all of these things in 3 years
in less than 3 years. We have made Australia a country we can be proud of
we have made Australia the fairest Anglo-Saxon country in the world. And
this is what Labor Governments are all about: fairness, equity, imagination,
belief, faith. Faith in our fellow Australians, compassion for their lot in life,
belief in Australia. But now, at the brink of the century, there is one message
to come from that great achievement, and it is this: we can't go back.
Now we have got such momentum, we can't go back. Now we have made
Australia competitive and stronger, we can't go back. Now we have built a
social democracy and a social wage with equity, we can't go back. Now we
have got a Native Title Act, we can't go back. Now we have built a future in
Asia, we can't go back. Now we have mapped the path to the republic, we
can't go back. We can't go back to the Iniquity, or our past
uncompetitiveness, we can't go back the conflict, we can't go back to the
continental insularity, to the mono-culture, to the denial of truth about our
indigenes, to the monarchy. In short, we can't go back to the old Australia.
We can't go back to John Howard's Australia conservative Australia, the
Liberal's Australia. 2 Oct 95TEL: g. 2o No. U .~ t0 01 R .02/ 16

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Now, this week was an interesting week in Australian public life. This week,
the real John Howard stood up. He didn't stand up voluntarily, and he didn't
stand up very straight. But he stood up just enough for Australians to see
him for the first time since he became leader again. And what did they see?
They saw the old John Howard the one we all know. The man who has
opposed every wage rise, bar one since 1978. The man who opposes
progressive legislation instinctively. Who opposed the Racial Discrimination
Act, who opposed sanctions on South Africa, who opposed the South Pacific
Nuclear Free Zone, who said in 1987 " Medicare is one of the great disasters
of this Government we will be proposing changes to Medicare that amounts
to its de facto dismantling". The man, who in the same year, wanted to reintroduce
racial discrimination into Australia's immigration policy. Privately,
Honest John says he wants a labour market with downward flexibility.
Publicly, Honest John says he just wants a flexible labour market. Yet, at the
same time he champions his other article of faith the family. " I'm pro-family",
he says as if the rest of us, of course, were anti-family. But he's pro-family,
and anti-overtime rates. Pro-family, and anti-penalty rates. Pro-family, and
anti-award. Pro-family, and anti-breadwinner. Pro-family, and pro-take-the--
contract-or-take-the-sack. Pro-family, and pro-knocking tens of billions out of
Government programs which go to support Australian families. John Howard
is pro-family, and anti-family support. He is pro-family, and anti-fairness.
John Howard has a curious concept of choice we noticed it this week with
industrial relations. The downward flexibility he favours, he wants us to
construe as choice. And in fact, the choice he talks about will prove to be a
denial of choice, as it is already happening under legislation in Victoria, and
in legislation in Western Australia. There was the case this week of a
librarian in Melbourne, under the old Victorian state award. After years of
commuting, she saw a job advertised closer to home. She phoned the
employer, and found that the work is identical to her current position. Then
she discovered the difference in the salary her current salary was $ 35,000.
The salary for the new position because the old state award had been
abolished by Jeff Kennett was $ 19,000. So, she was forced to stay where
she was. That's the choice that John Howard talks about. And in that choice,
of course, it makes very clear that person is going to be stuck there is not
going to be mobility or flexibility, but stuck and not able to make the move
away. Now, he has never done the right thing, and he has never done the hard
things. In the 80s he let himself be buffered around by the heavies of the
New Right. He picked up their rhetoric, after formerly trying to make himself
up as some sort of cuddly person in the moderate parts of the Liberal Party.
But he ended up with the heavies of the New Right, and trying to buy votes
with a discriminatory immigration policy. He has always been weak he can
sound forcible, but he is never strong, and he is never principled. Now, let
me just give you a couple of quotes this week about Mascot airport, because
it is not so much the issue of the airport it's what it means In terms of where
he would lead Australia. He says all the time the greatest priority that faces
the Government at the present time in the national economy in the national
interests is to " re-ignite the process of micro-economic reform". He says,

EL: . Oct , Z 1' 1 U'Ouii P .0j4/ i
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" the Coalition Government will revitalise the micro-economic process. It
might be boring to many, but any Government Interested in this country's
economic future and jobs for its people must get on with the task of improving
its efficiency. The better we are, the better off we will be", he says. As one of
its first tasks, he says he will have a Productivity Commission, which will carry
out a stock-take on the progress of micro-economic reform. There will be
particular areas of emphasis which will impact on Australia's international
competitiveness, as well as a timetable for decision-making and
implementation. In other words, he is the one he says will crack all the tough
nuts that Labor, he says, won't touch. Such as the waterfront, such as the
labour market, such as shipping and transport, such as these things.
But when it comes to the biggest micro-economic change in air transport in
Australia that is the third runway at Mascot airport, he is now slipping back
saying he wants to cut its capacity by 35%, and he wants to make in
inherently unsafe. But this is after he said these things about it he said this
in a press release, which I have from 1989: " in the interests of safety, airport
facilities should be upgraded immediately, including the construction of a
third runway. The Government is playing carelessly with a situation that
could too easily result in a major tragedy this risk must be averted." This is
on his press release. And it goes on in that vein. He said this In a number of
other places he has made it clear across the way. And when asked on radio
in the same year, he said this talking about noise: " Many people get less
because you will have the north-south pattern. I think the case for it, on
general interest grounds, is absolutely overwhelming. Our policy is to build it,
that's been our policy for the past 6 1/ 2 years". In other words, he says it will
be better, it will be safer for the airport to be configured this way it will lift its
capacity, and it is a major micro-economic change. But now, the same microreformer
that has urged Labor to do another hard thing as we have done on
the waterfront, in shipping, in telecommunications, in deregulating the airline
system, in infrastructure such as the third runway he now says for a few
miserable votes in Bennelong, he will move backwards. He will move
backwards. He will move backwards away from the task that he knows has to
continue. Whether it's in ports and wharves, or electricity, or gas, or water, or
any of the things that will determine our competitiveness, he is moving back.
But listen to this for humbug, and he said this in the Parliament in 1981, " what
makes what this Government has done so criminally irresponsible", and he Is
talking here about the runway, about Mascot, " as criminally irresponsible in a
political sense, is that all along it has known the right thing to do. It's one
thing to be invincibly ignorant about the correct economic prescription, It's an
infinitely more culpable thing to know what the right thing is, and to
conscientiously pursue that course of action in the name of political
expediency and political opportunism". In other words, he is doing the very
thing now that he was upbraiding other people alleging that other people
did then. Yet this is the person who is going to run the new Australian
agenda. The person who is going to be the hard man, who breaks the microeconomic
log-jam. First bit of pressure, and he goes to water. And where's
the pressure? In a seat he has held for 20 years. He has got a margin of
3.5% 1 he is running for Prime Minister, but he thinks he mightn't hold his seat.
Oh; he's got a big ticker a big ticker. And he said oh no, look, it's all about

[ ELL O. Ct 5 3: 2U No . Cj01 F. 05,-16
Lowe. But, of course, the noise in Lowe comes across the back end of the
electorate he knows it's all about Bennelong. And here he is, he's out there
saying I can lead you to a better Australia, I can break the log-jams, I can
bring the new age in, but I had better shore up my own seat. I had better get
around. But, of course, the other thing, can I say he is completely at odds with the
interests of the people from rural NSW. And just let me give you a couple of
instincts about this. If we force Mascot back by 35%, there's no way all of the
commuter aircraft can come to Sydney. They will have to hub somewhere,
and then come they will have to hub into bigger planes. We won't have 8-
seaters, and 12-seaters and 20-seaters they will have to hub into big
planes. So, if I give you an example: from Dubbo, it now takes 55 minutes
on Hazelton Airlines. If they have to hub through Orange, it will take 1 hour
minutes. It costs $ 3.36 now, it will cost $ 436. From Parkes, it takes
minutes. If they have to hub through Orange, it will take 1 hour and
minutes. And let me give the example of Port Macquarie Port Macquarie
direct now is 55 minutes, hubbing through Newcastle on Eastern Airlines, It
will take 1 hour and 50 minutes. It now costs $ 348, it will cost $ 470. Albury
on Kendall Airlines takes 1 hour 10 minutes now. Hubbing through Canberra
it will take 2 hours and 15 minutes it's now $ 432, it will be $ 528. And
Narrandera which comes via Hazelton is 1 hour 20 minutes. Hubbing
through Wagga will take 2 hours and 5 minutes. It's now $ 396, it will be
$ 490. 1 mean, that's what he is doing to country NSW he is going to punish
it, he is going to remove their access to our capital city, he is going to do It all
in the name of a bit of sly politics for a change which he has always himself
supported all those years ago, for all those many years.
Now, this is the John Howard who believes that he can dupe the public, that
he can explain to people see, he is from the John Carrick school of politics.
That is, say a thing often enough, say it with meaning, look serious, keep
repeating the lie, and you have got a good chance of getting away with it.
Let me say a few things more about his industrial relations policies. He says
that people will be able to stay on their awards. But this belies an
understanding about the labour market, that 1.7 million take new jobs or
change jobs every year. That in a 3 year life of an Australian Parliament 3
years 43% of jobs change. Every time they change, those people lose the
award protections. All the young people coming out of universities into the
labour market for the first time, lose the award protections. The women
joining the workforce won't have the award protection. Migrants joining the
workforce won't have the award protections. So much so, all of those things
will change. And then he says that he will have some sort of disadvantage
test, but not the no-disadvantage test. Not the one that says you can trade in
or cash-out overtime, penalty rates or holiday leave loading, but you must get
something for it. You can trade them away to make the enterprise more
flexible, to make the work hours more flexible, but the total package must not
be a disadvantage for the employee, and there is a test which is applied
through our federalised institutions. He won't do that. Nor will he say that
there is some community standards like sick leave and maternity leave etc

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which won't be traded away, and shouldn't be traded away. He wants, of
course, flexibility downwards, and there will be no disadvantage tests. Now
what this means to the people in the workforce like, for instance nurses who
would lose about 22% a year by losing overtime and penalty rates, about
$ 5000 a year, truck-drivers who would probably lose the better part of about
$ 6000 a year on the same basis you can find all categories of people In this
labour market of ours who, basically, will be much worse off, without the
systems we have in place. And this Is the nearest we have ever got to a
permanent wages system. And the enterprise bargaining system where
people can go out, with the productivity of the business, split it between
profits and wages, and make themself better off, and make the company
stronger, and make the business stronger and for those who haven't got that
strength, or that negotiation power, or that negotiating position, we have got
to say to you we have got a safety net, with safety net adjustments which
maintain their purchasing power, and give them increases in income. That's
the system we have in place it's the system he wants to junk.
But this is the man who will basically do anything to see this view of his this
religious view he has had about pushing wages down. The same fellow, of
course, who doesn't want an Australian as the Head of State. The same guy
as I said earlier who is opposed to the Native Title Bill. The same person
who, months ago, wouldn't see the political leader of Vietnam. Who hates
the Accord, but wants to keep the monarchy. Who wants to strip away those
award protections from the lowest paid, and create an army of working poor
to give us the American model for Australia. The failed Treasurer, the failed
Leader of the Opposition, the Liberal Party's third choice In this parliament.
The man who wants to be Prime Minister of Australia. The thing is we can't
go back.
This week, we saw the real John Howard the vaccillator, the opportunist,
that man without principles, the man without policies. The man who has
Honest John etched on the shingle out the front, and under it, " we trade
anything". Anything for a few votes. The national interest on aviation, and
micro-economic reform sold for a few votes in Bennelong. The national
interests in a relationship with Vietnam sold for a few votes in Marrickville.
And by the way, this week when he was sustaining his losses on Kingsford-
Smith airport, he went up around the press gallery he is now beavering
away in the press gallery and he told them that his Private Member's Bill of
Kingsford-Smith Airport was just a clever stunt a means of getting industrial
relations off the front page. Well, I thought an interesting example of tactics
devised after the battle yes, I have lost a leg, but you know, I meant to. It
was part of the strategy. But the more interesting point is why would he
want to move industrial relations off the front page? If he Is running around
telling journalists that he has moved his stunt Private Members Bill on
Kingsford-Smith, why would he want to remove industrial relations off the
front page? And the answer is easy and that is, because everyone knows
that on industrial relations, John Howard has never changed that it will still
define him, that he is determined to got his way and to cut wages back.

TEL: 2. Oct. 95 3: 20j No. 001 PF. 07.16
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So, we have seen him trading votes, and trading policies all week. The
principle and integrity of the institution of the Royal Commission which has
meant so much to Australia in years past, which we can see working here
now with the Police Royal Commission in NSW was sold for the votes that
Carmen Lawrence might win, and the Liberals might lose as they fail apart in
Western Australia. All of these things have always been his way. He has
never done the hard things, or the good things, he has only done things to
buy votes.
On the other hand, Labor sees our ( tape break)... replete with opportunities.
We have come a long way in the past decade, and a very long way in 3
years. But none of us believe that we have gone as far as we might, that the
job is over, or that the dream is fulfilled, but we are still doing things. And let
me just give you a few examples. On the environment this week on the
environment, we have got the largest process we have ever had under the
National Forest Policy Statement, the agreement between the Commonwealth
and the States we are now looking at deferred forest areas which will be put
away for 2 3 years for development of Regional Forest Agreements. Those
Regional Forest Agreements will have representative stands of trees
representative reserve systems, so we won't be arguing coupe by coupe,
compartment by compartment, logging company by logging company for each
group of trees that are taken from the forests. So, in other words, we will
have a mature system. And what is our standard? 15% of the native forests
which existed before European settlement that is about twice as much as
any comparable developed country has. Twice as much as the United
States, much more than Europe higher than any comparable country. And
we are now getting the cooperation of the State Departments of Forestry we
are bringing the States in partly because we told them last Christmas that if
they didn't, we would cut woodchips back by 20% a year to nothing. And so
they have come to the party Tasmania has signed up. You know our
Government in NSW didn't need signing up they are going to put a good
policy into place with the Commonwealth. And we are about to now, embark
upon a process where for 3 weeks we have left a draft in the market place for
the green groups, the environment movement and for the forest and paper
industries to look over, and to come back to the Cabinet, and where the
Cabinet will then settle on deferred forest areas. We will put them away, and
in the next 2 or 3 years we will have Regional Forest Agreements, and then
we can go on with a decent plantation and pulpwood industry taking regrowth
and some things from the native forests, but knowing that those great
forests of Australia will be protected, and the representative stands and
species will be there forever. Now, that's what we're doing. No Government
has ever attempted it that's what we are doing now.
But I noticed in today's Australian, someone had some wise words to say
about this process I'll just read you a couple if these things. It says in
demanding Federal and State Governments protect ever-Increasing areas of
old-growth forests, the environment movement may sacrifice its credibility,
and reinforce the image that it is insatiable. Without even glimpslng at the
draft proposals for the deferred forest areas yesterday, the environmental
alliance prepared a statement that condemned the outcome as diabolical. It

TEL: 2 Oct .95 3 : 20 NO 01 F 08/ 16
claimed forests such as East Gippsland in Victoria were going to be
destroyed that the situation in Victoria was catastrophic, only 2 catchment
areas would be protected. None of this is true. Years of campaigning has
won the movement far more than it is prepared to admit. In Victoria, where
some of the most detailed assessments have been carried out, the size of
national parks and reserves means additions of protected forests are likely to
be small". It goes on to say, " reserves in the Wombat State Forest will be
enlarged by 50%. Of box ironbark forests, spread throughout Victoria, an
extra 90,000 hectares is required to meet the Federal Government's
benchmarks. There will be 150,000 hectares available. in East Gippsland.
the State's 3 year plan allows 18,000 hectares to be logged, leaving 640,000
still untouched and available for inclusion in a reserve system that will have
been long-finalised by then. Interim protection has also been given to 2 icon
areas the Betka River, and Ellery Creek catchment area. This is not
catastrophic, nor the destruction of East Gippsland". And it finished with this
punch line " if the environment movement wants to be taken seriously, it will
need to drop the exaggeration, and use the next 3 weeks to make the most of
Canberra's offer of genuine consultation of what is still, after all, a draft".
Now, let me endorse those comments.
Only Labor has ever protected the environment. We are the only ones who
care about it. And if you take the last 15 months, we have put away In
Queensland, Shoalwater Bay that beautiful area that has been within the
Defence Department for all these years. we have put it away forever. We
have saved Jervis Bay. We have dlone things in various locations along
Eastern Australia particularly. And not only that, we have just reinstated
another plan on the Barrier Reef Laurie Brereton has, again, been
protecting the Reef through the carriage of vessels through it, and
particularly, dle-ballasting. We have done all of these things and, at the same
time, we have told the forest industries you are going to be cut by 20% a year
to nothing, unless you get into Regional Forest Agreements. You either add
value, and get into Regional Forest Agreements, or you're in for the chop.
Except the chop is not the tree the chop is you. In all of this, we have now
established a process where not like last year, where we were arguing
about 100 or so coupes but we are now looking at the forests of the country
as I say, for the largest representative system in the developed world,
minimum of that which existed before European settlement. And, of course,
we are doing more than that. On the land, we have got the Landcare
movement working. Only Labor cares about the land, and the way it has
been abused and lost. And we have got the Land Management Task Force
about to report, and it is going to report about how we have got whole of farm
planning how we rationalise farms in regions. How we give structural
assistance to move farms into rational and economic units. How we got off
marginal land. How we deal with salinity. How we see water resources
brought to the right places, at the right prices, in ways that will not encourage
salinity. How we improve our principal river system, the Murray Darling. All
of these things are things which are only on the agenda of one political party
the Australian Labor Party.

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And can I say, while I am at that, in these things that we are doing these
ideas we have we are also underwriting now the future of Australian
agriculture. We are trying to drought-proof Australia. We are putting a
premium on the family farm. And isn't it a great irony, as always I suppose,
that it has got to be a Labor Government that goes out and defends the
backbone of rural Australia the family farm, It's a Labor Government which
has now removed, in the drought, of course the asset test for income social
security income. Over 11,000 farm families are now getting income support
we have paid $ 88 million in exceptional drought relief in NSW, and we have
paid $ 600 million overall $ 600 million. And that has kept rural Australia
together given them hope, given them heart until the rains make clear, or
enough rain comes, to see that the drought is broken.
For regional Australia that the Liberals have never cared about, that the
National Party has never cared about we are saying regions are important
to Australia. Regions is where the fastest growth is it's not in the capital
cities any more, its in some of the regions. We want to make the regions
work better. We want to see them become part of the national economy. We
want to see them have a role and a future for themselves, and make their
contribution. And we are developing Regional Economic Development
Organisations, we're funding the capacity of people to think about thelr
regions. We are saying that the regions which are led at a community level
by business, by unions, by local government, by community groups they are
the regions that kick along. They are the regions that are part of the Labor
view of Australia the ones that will be part and central to where we go as a
future. They are some of the things that we are thinking about. And I tell you those
things to make this point that the coming election is going to be a
referendum of ideas, a referendum on policy. A choice between those with
ideas, with imagination and with policy, and those without them. The big
ideas growth, jobs, cooperation, fairness, the environment, the region,
APEC, the republic. I mean, these are the big ideas of Australia. The big
ideas of Labor. The big things we stand for. And there is going to be no
running and hiding in the referendum of ideas. John Howard might run, but
he can't hide. And I can assure you I will trace him down every policy black
hole, through every shonky press statement, through every glib phrase,
through every broken promise, through every paltry manoeuvre he will be
accountable. Because they have no policy ideas the dogs are barking it in
their staff and around Parliament House. There is no inventory of ideas and
policies about to come out for the election, for the Liberal Party. They don't
have any. They want to make the election campaign about us. I say good
we are the leaders of Australia. We are the enlargers we are not the
punishers and the straiteners. We are the people who dream the big dreams
and do the big things.
Imagine if they had our agenda imagine if now John Hewsori had won the
election, and he was sitting with our work 4% growth, 4% employment
growth, 2-3% inflation, the Current Account trending down, exports booming,
a cooperative labour market, and Accord where the unions endorsed the

TEL: 2 .0c t -6 : 2u No Uul F. 1uw' it,
Reserve Banks inflation target, a fair social wage, Medicare, the
environment, the forests, the sea, the water, the land, the region, the country,
APEC, the Pacific Rim, the republic. Imagine if they had that agenda. But
what have they got? Miserable, out-dated rubbish from the 1950s and the
1960s. The politics of envy. The mono-culture. They reject it all. About a
year or so ago in Canberra I saw John Olsen getting a prize. He said, " look
there's only 2 sorts of Australians the lovers and others, and we know what
to think of the others, don't Now, we are part of the lovers. We are
part of the believers. We are the enlargers. And Australia has always gone
for enlargement it has always gone for the big ideas for equity, fairness,
justice and a future. Now, that's what we have got. We are going to fight this
election as hard as we fought any election ever. The thing we have got
against us, is that we have been in office for 12 years. But the public knows
that against that longevity of office, there is this huge pile of achievements.
That we have genuinely given Australia a future, that we have ideas about it.
We feel for the place we know about its role in the region, we have regard
for one another they know these things. In my view, they are not going to
turn that out, and take the third choice of the Liberal Party. A person who has
never put any of the big policy changes into place, and someone who just
this week has proven again how hollow he is. It's going to be a great fight.
And you have often heard from this lectern in other circumstances the phrase
things worth fighting for. But these things are worth fighting for. We have got
a Labor Government in NSW we have got a great Labor leader In Bob Carr.
We have got a Labor Government in Queensland, and we control the great
bulk of the resources in Eastern Australia the landscape, the territory we
can do things together. And I can even drag a few of the recalcitrant
Premiers to the party on occasions. So the future is ours. What we have got
to do now is go out there and hang on to it grab it, seize it, and run with it.
And when we do, we will have the reward we have had on 5 occasions. What
we now want it now is for our 6th, and I am telling you this we will get it.
Thank you.
ends.

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