AUS> TRALIA
PRIME MINISTER
FOR MEDIA SUNDAY 1 JUNE 1980
ADDRESS TO-NATIONAL COUNTRY PARTY CONFERENCE
The partnership between our parties over the last five years has
been a very close and a very constructive one for Australia.
The transformation of this country over this time has been quite
remarkable. Five years ago nobody tried very much. They had been taught
that there was no need to put effort into what they were doing.
People had come to believe, or had been told and promised,
that Governments would and could provide anything, no matter
what they themselves did to earn it.
The pursuit of excellence, the encouragement of initiative; of
enterprise and of investment was just put aside in those years.
In the time since, we have seen a remarkable recovery right
across the broad spectrum of Australia. The great rural industries
of this country have had two reasonable years, and this year also
looks as if it is opening well. It is not often that we have
wool.-and sheep and sugar, beef and wheat, and other rural industries,
all doing reasonably well at the one time. That means a great
deal not only for farmers and pastoralists but obviously for all
of those in country towns and for the industries that service
the rural economy.
We have often underestimated in the past the extent to which
depression in the rural sector drags down the rest of this country.
If farmers have no income, and if they stop spending, it has an
immediate impact in their own communities and an immediate impact
on the major industries that are significant suppliers for the
rural sector. When rural Australia is doing well that has an
impact on industries and on the great cities. It gives us all
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more optimism and faith in the future.
Because of a number of things which have occurred in trade
we have been able to re-establish a much more secure access
to many markets overseas, inflation is under control to a much
greater extent than it was in those earlier times, we have
introduced special policies designed to enable farmers and
pastoralists to rebuild their assets and, to repair their farms
and establish financial reserves once again because of all this,
people are looking to the future with the kind of confidence that
was absent from Australia for so long.
This is the case not only in rural Australia. our manufacturing
industries are doing very much better than they have for many
many years. The volume of manufactured exports was up about
per cent last year, with consequences for employment and for the
well being of the total economy. The mining industry is moving
forward strongly in many states. I would not mind if every
Australian went for a holiday overseas between now and the next
election so long as they were back here by voting day because
if people saw what was happening in the United States, Canada,
the United Kingdom and in a number of countries in Europe and then
returned to this country, they would have a feeling of pride in
what Australia is achieving, and a feeling of confidence in the
prospects for the 1980s.
I do not know any other country that can look to the 1980s with
the kind of confidence that is now coming to be widely shared
throughout Australia. Our inflation rate is much less than many
of our significant trading partners, and I believe we can keep it
that way. In the United. States and the United Kingdom there have
been very severe and great economic difficulties, and there
the growth of trade and the growth of output is minimal.
The United Kingdom's economy will probably shrink over this year
and perhaps over the next year.
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Against that kind of background overseas, the performance in
Australia is, in comparative returns, even better than we might
otherwise believe it to be. In a world where there has been
high inflation and where there have been energy shortages and
rising prices for oil, Ithe world economy has not been growing
all that much, while Australia is moving ahead
quite strongly. That is because we have been able to bring
together some basic natural assets; the strength of our own
industries, a better run economy as we believe, great mining
resources and abundant reserves of a number of different forms of
energy. By these means we have been able to attract more
investment and hence more activity to this country, providing the
basis for a confidence that people in Australia have but which is
not fully shared in a number of other countries at the present
time.
over the next few nonths, there are two points about the Labor Party that we need
to have understood right throughout the Australian community. The first
is the extent of their move to the left over the last years, and
it is very significant indeed. You will remember in the past how
Mr. Whitlam took on the Victorian Socialist Left, how he was
reported to have vanquished the Socialist Left well the Socialist
Left in Victoria is not only well and prospering but it is moving
pretty vigorously out into other States, in the selection of
candidates and the dominance that they have in the Party and the
kind of policies that are being pursued. When Mr. Hawke accused
Mr. Hayden of a ' gutless sell-out to the Left' at the Adelaide
Conference-of the Labor Party last year, Mr. Hartley then revealed
what-had happened. Mr. Hayden had accepted the economic advice
of the AN1WSU instead of Mr. Hawke's advice. We know that that
particular union is far to the Left in the political spectrum.
It was quite plain that they had come to dominate Mr. Hayden's
economic thinking in the kind of policies that he wanted to pursue.
There was a momentary breach in that alliance a couple of weeks
ago when Mr. Hayden believed that he ought to -act responsibly.
I commended him for attacking the campaign for a 35 hour week.
But he was immediately repudiated by his own Caucus. I understand
Mr. Hawke has been saying that Mr. Hayden will have to change his
views. In fact in the Parliament they voted for a different kind
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of approach and all in all I expect that that will be the last
burst of responsibility we will see from Mr. Hayden for a while.
The movement to the Left, the intervention in Queensland, the
nature of the candidates selected in Victoria, the lack of a
realistic economic policy, must be matters for concern, and
matters that will concern the electors of Australia later this
year.
We remember that the expenditure of previous Labor years resulted
in a very high inflation. Well so far, in just four areas of
expenditure; in employment, in health, in housing and in welfare
the ALP have committed themselves to an additional $ 1,800
million of expenditure each year. Ndw that is four ministries
out of about 26 or 27.
When other pbtential ministers make their demands for additional
expenditure, how much extra money would they then be spending, if they
ever had an opportunity again. Throwing money at problems is
still very much part of their makeup. It shows that they have
learned nothing from previous occasions.
So the two things that I believe that we need to have understood
are the movement to the Left and their essential irresponsibility
in the management of the financial affairs of this country. I
believe on those two grounds the people of Australia would reject
the Australian Labor Party.
If there were any ' doubt about it, they have said one or two things
about taxation. In December last year Mr. Hayden reminded us
that his revenue raising programmes were somewhat more radical
than had been outlined up to 1972 by Mr. Whitlam. . He said
that he had committed his organisation to a capital gains tax,
a resource rental tax, a levy on domestic oil producers which
Mr. Keating has said would collect more than our levy a number
of initiatives in the tax area and other measures of that nature.
He left it to his spokesman on economic affairs to define other
measures. Mr. Willis said it was wrong that we did not have some
form of tax on capital, be it death duties, a capital gains tax,
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a wealth tax or perhaps some kind of combination of those, or
all three. Let nobody say they have n ot been warned, because
in those policy statements we have been told very plainly what
the tax future would be under any future Labor Government.
But we do not rely on the negatives. It is the positive things
that this Government has done what we can achieve for Australia
in the years ahead that are important. When we look at events
overseas, we will find that it is even more important that the
Coalition stays very firmly and strongly in power in charge of
Australia's affairs.
The world is going through a difficult time. You will remember
how after all the difficulties of the Cold War and the involvement
in Korea, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the third
rape of Czechoslovakia in thirty years in 1968, people began to
think and hope that surely there was a better way. The concept of
detente, the idea of lessening of tensions between the super
powers was born. As a result of that it was determined that East
and West would live together in a friendly and a happier atmosphere.
And the Western world, Europe and the United States if they did not
believe-it, at least they pretended that they believed it. The
United States started to reduce her defence expenditures. Europe
became less wary. Everyone was less concerned at what was
happening outside of Europe. They ignored some of what the Soviets
were then doing. They ignored the fact that Mr. Brezhnev said
after the concept of detente was born: ' that it doesn't in the
slightest abolish, nor can it abolish or alter the laws of the
class. struggle.: He made it perfectly plain that by subversion,
by the provision of arms, and as we have seen more recently, by
the outright use of their own military forces in Afghanistan, they are
determined if they can to extend their sway and their dominance
over more peoples in this world.
Since detente was born there have been problems in Angola, Ethiopia,
the Yemen and Vietnam, where, either directly or indirectly the
Soviets . have propagated war and conflict, discord and difficulty.
And of course most recently of all Afghanistan. There is one
healthy thing one only that has come out of Afghanistan, and
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that is that the Soviets are being seen for what they are, much
more plainly than for many many years. In many cases the blinkers
have come off and people understand the nature of the Soviet Union
and the nature of the Soviet threat more clearly than might have
been the case for 10 or even for 20 years. If that is so and
if as a result people are going to pursue more realistic policies,
well then that at least is healthy. We are going to be in for a
long period where the United States and the major countries of
Europe are going to have to show a strength and a determination,
going to have to rebuild their own defences and capacities, not
just for this year or for next, but over quite a long period.
Because I have not the slightest doubt that there is only one
thing which the Soviet Union respects and that is strength and
determination in preventing their dominance over more and more
countries spreading.
As a result of the invasion of Afghanistan they have already
achieved very significant strategic advantages. They have the
capacity now to use airfields in Afghanistan, extending their
tactical air power over much larger areas of the Middle East and
of the oil producing states strategic air power over again a
much larger area than was possible before. There are other
advantages for them as well for example, being able to move more
easily against Pakistan if they wish,-or to take advantage of
difficulties in Iran. These are very real dangers, and it will
be only the determination of the United States and the determination
of other countries in Europe that will prevent those dangers from
becoming more.. real.
Against that backg round of all of our history and with all of
our involvement in the past in support of allies and in the
defence of the kind of freedom and liberty which is vital to our
way of life, it is all the more important that we stand with our
friends, with our allies, with the United States, with the
United Kingdom, with France and with Germany, because they are the
main determinants of what can happen; because they are the countries
which in reality have the power.
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That is one of the significant reasons why this Government has
pursued over recent months the kind of policies it has pursued
in response to that invasion of Afghanistan, in support of the
United States and of major countries in Europe. It is a tragedy
for Australia that all Mr. Hayden can do, in his desire to
criticise this Government, is to irrply that everything that President
Carter is doing, is done for domestic political reasons, almost
as though he had engineered the Soviets into Afghanistan for.
domestic political reasons in the United States. The proposition
of course, is one of total absurdity.
Australia could have expected more " of the Australian Labor Party
in matters as important, in matters as vital to the future and
security of this country. The fact that they have not behaved in
a responsible way in relation to these issues will mean they will
be judged more harshly when the time comes.
There is one other thing that I would like to say. I have said it
before, and it remains very true. As Prime minister you need
people who support you, people whom you can consult, very often on
the most sensitive and delicate matters which never touch the
light of day. You need people who can carry at times some of the
burden and some of the difficulty. I have said it before and I
say it again: nobody could have a better lieutenant than Doug Anthony,
as Deputy Prime Minister, than I have. Over a long period he has
helped to lighten the load with the benefit of his own experience
and judgment in many matters, he has certainly contributed
enormously. to: the strength and to the unity of the Coalition. And
Doug.. is also supported by people like Peter Nixon and Ralph Hunt
who are respected right throughout all political parties, by all
Liberals, as well as by their own. 000---