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PRIME MIN STER
E. O. E. -Proof Only
TRANSCRIPT OF' SPEECH TO TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION FEDERAL COUT-HCIL
9 MAY 1983
First of all, thank you very much for the invitation which was
extended to me to come along and open your Council Meeting. I
apologise for taking a little bit long. There is a Cabinet
meeting going and I have had to leave that a bit early. There
are some matters I had to before leaving.
The f irst thing I want to say is to emphasise to you the very
fundamental course of the industry in which you and your members
have evolved. I have always said that there is no part of our
economy which is essentially more important, not only
intrinsically, but in terms of the efficient functioning of -the
rest of the economy, than the transport centre. At the la-test
assessment transport, storage and communication constituted about
14% of our gross national product and the transport industry is
far away our biggest service industry. The ramification and
visibility to our transport industry in relation to our geography
and the distribution of our population is best illustrated
perhaps by remembering the fact that about 80% of our total
population lives in the triangle which goes from Brisbane to
Adelaide to Hobart. Despite what some people say, Hobart is part
of Australia, and we certainly believe it is, although others attimes
seem to suggest that it is not. Now 80% of our population
lives in that triangle, but in terms of the land mass of
Australia, that triangle represents about 10% of our land mass,
with 80% of the population Ithere, so you have the situation where
a concentration of your services to some extent in that triangle
to provide about 80% of the population, and yet because we are so
vast and something like 20% of our population are living in about
there are a valid setL-of problems which relate to the
provision of adequate services to the rest of our population.
That emphasises the importance of the economics of the transport
industry. We have come into Government with a clear understanding
of the importance of your industry and we are committed as a
Government, to promoting an efficient and equitable natioa
transport system, which is going to be related to those facts that
I have alluded to. Vie are committed, as I say, to creative
consultations with the State Governments who also have responsibility-.
in this area and certainly with the Tribunal and with relevant
emi Jd?& r organisations equitable, safe, reliable and
convenient transport system and one which is going to pursue the
national objectives of efficiency i~ n a socially effective w-. ay.
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There are some things that we have already done in the very short
period that we have been in office. We have indicated our
commitments to these objectives. You will appreciate that just
in the last week or so we have injected an amount of about
$ 265 million into QANTAS, TAA and into the Australian National
Line. I am sure that our acts in that regard would meet with your
philosophical commitments to the view that there i~ s an important
place in our overall national transport system for a public
proposal. We will also be directing our attention to the
establishment: of a National Airport Authority and we will give
a national enquiry into the Rosebud Transport Industry. We will
also be looking towards the establishment of an Interstate
Commission to investigate discrimination i~ n pricing, anomalies
and inefficiencies in interstate transport.
Now, I trust that in those introductory comments I have done two
things. First, to get clearly in your minds our appreciation of
the importance of your industry. You are ostensibly representing
the interests of workers in an industry which is important in
itself, and as I say, the efficiency of which very largely
determines how efficient our overall on this operation is
going to be. Secondly, I trust that I have established in your
minds that already, in the short time since we have been in office,
that we have done things already, directing our attention to issues
which are important to your industry and therefore of interest to
your members.
There are unfortunately 2 other things that I have to refer to.
Firstly, you will understand that we have inherited a budgetary
situation imposing very, very considerable constraints upon thecapacity,
that we as a Government have to do all the things that we
would like to do. It can't be repeated toe often, that we were
led to believe, and you and your members were led to believe that
the sort of budgetary situation that we would be looking at in
1983/ 84 would be a deficit of the order of $ 6 billion. That was
one of the great and most deliberate deceptions that has ever been
practised upon the people of this country since the history of
Federation. In fact, those previous Government leaders, who were
saying to the people of Australia during the election campaign,
that there would be a budget deficiL to the order of $ 6 billion,
knew and knew clearly, that it was very, very much more than that.
In fact they knew at the highest stage of the election campaign
that the deficit that we could contain in the forthcoming financial
year without any change in existing programs, would be about
$ 9.6 billion. Now, it would be nice for -the Government t~ o believe
that we just have an over-extended budgetary de ficit stain
That you can go on doing all the things that have been done,
introduce all the new programs that you want, and on the revenue
side, niot impose any more charges, but just let the deficit blow
out without limit. Now, unfortunately, that doesn't represent the
facts of life. There are limits to.... if you don't limit the
size of the budget deficit then there are three economic results
which inevitably follow.
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One is that to finance an unlimited budget deficit you have to
sell Government paper and this is like, simply..... out and if
they do, that imposes very heavy burdens, most of all upon the
people who represent the people on the lower and middle income
levels who suffer most as interest rates blow out. It is also
associated with significant increases in inflation, and again,
the wealthier sections of the commiunity have a relatively much
greater capacity to look after themselves in that sort of
situation, than the people that you represent, who suffer most
if there are rising interest rates, but also rising inflation.
The third economic consequence is, of course, that you start to
have unbearable pressures upon the So, I simply say to you
that the Government has inherited such a deceptive mess, then we
have to change policies in the things that we are able to do.
Having said that, let me say before I go on to the other areas that
you expect me to speak to you about, that we have been engaged in
the very few weeks since we have been in Government in undertaking
a detailed review of the budgetary situation in Australia. We have
looked at, and are still looking at a whole range of expenditure
programs that we inherited. We are looking at the area of
taxation expenditure. In economist jargon we are talking about
those concessions which are available to the taxpayers, which over
the years in a way which has always concerned itself to the
considerations of equity and giving information to those who are
most in need. Also, of course, you have inflation. Now we
are doing that, not simply for the sake of acquiring knowledge, as
satisfying as that may be, but we agree that we have a real
responsibility in terms of the electoral mandate given on 5 March,
to move as quickly as we can to implement policies which are going
to get the economy moving in general, and particularly to start to
generate more jobs and so, within a couple of weeks, we will be
introducing into the Parliament of Australia a statement which will
be directed towards achieving those ends. We can start to see
without waiting that it is quite artificial saying all this when
you have then got a Budget to see what things can be done
immediately to try and keep the economy moving to provide more jobs.
Now, obviously in that context the question of what happens to the
claims from all sections of the community upon our resources is
important. As far as you are concerned, the question of wages 3is
important. Noone is more conscious than I am of the need to get
equity in terms of restraint and indeed in the Parliament at tile
end of last year, when we were in Opposition, we said, in Opposition
that the Government's approach then it wasn't sufficient just to
be looking and called upon wage and salary earners to exercise
restraint, when nothing was being done at all in other areas. So
we promised in the election campaign that our Government would move
towards trying to ensure that greater equity was operating in this
economy as the mood to 83 to that the necessary restraint
was exercised throughout the community. That was essentially at
the core of the Economic Summit proceedings which we had on the
week commencing 11 April. We recognise the Government continue
to recognise that if we are going, as a community, to be able to
move, to get the economy moving to create more jobs, then this
restraint has to be exercised during 1983 and the sorts of things
that we are doing are to create the Economic Planning Advisory
Council and we will be moving also to establish the prices
surveillance mechanism. I have also written to the companies of
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Australia to ask that they exercise restraint in dividend payments
and in emoluments and perquisities of directors in the cream
positions of the top companies. We are in respect of
professional incomes approaching all. professional associations -to
ask if they agree voluntarily to the restraints exercised within
the mechanisms of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and
I can assure you that the policies we will adopt in our May
statement and the August Budget, at the fiscal level, will be
directed towards trying to achieve equity, so no inflative
capacity in the community to make a contribution we will be
making it compared to those with the least capacity. S& it was
quite unequivocably that the major mission of our Government is to
who do not have jobs. -Those of you, as representatives of peovile w'hc
are in employment, we want you, as people....... to share with mny
Government that our major commitment is to those who do not have the
luxury in these circumstances of employment. Our major objective
is to take the direction to create more jobs and we want you to
share our with us. Now, I have made it clear, that that does
not mean that we are looking endlessly at a wage freeze. I hav., e
made it quite clear at discussions in the Sunmmit and the statemeint
that was produced that we will go into a National Wage Case later on
in this year with a view to some movement in the later part of
year and that 1984 as providing the basis for indexation full
indexation because it is quite clear that the absence of any
centralised wage fixing system from July 81. gives a situation in
which the whole impetus of %.. age determination in this country broke
down . Those who did have the power were going to be able to get
their position rosier and, of course, those without jobs at all were
in the worst possible position of all and so, I say to you that i do
hope that this great union, one which association with the
Labor Movement going back a very long way at Federal and State level
and which can associate itself with a Government which you know is
committed to the welfare to those in the community who most need it.
There is no other issue which is more important than that and I ask
you to remember that in the last 12 months we have been in..
about million in the level. of unemployed. There is, this day,
out there in Austral~ ia at the very minimum, official figures,
million of our fellow Australians unemployed that is about' one
in three of our kids between the ages of 15 and 19 who want a job
one in three of them can't get a job there has been simply no
objective of the whole Labor Movement -political and industrial
which is more important, in our judgement, than taking decisions
which are going to increase the possibility of That's going t~ o
require on the part Members of Parliament, people whowok
people in professions, it is going to require all. of us to
exercise restraint. I come here as Prime Minister of this Labor
Government, not asking you for something which is unreasonable. I
say this specifically in regard to the Prices and Incomes Accord
because there are sections of that Prices and Incomes Accord which
are very important principles. I think it is a travesty of justice
that in 1983 we haven't in this country a national industrial
health and safety code. That you can have a situation where so
many working men and women are losing their lives because we
haven't got a code. We are moving now that an integral part of
what you agree with the Prices and incomes Accord. I have
directed all the Ministers to go through the Prices and Incomes
Accord in regard to all the areas and we have agreed that
things ought to be done democracy that we move immediately.
They are not being put on the back burners . The Government is
doing all the things, are moving to do all the things that the
Trade Union Movement in discussions with us has regarded as
appropriate trying to lift the working environment within
Australia, which your members operate in, so I do put it to You
that in the situation where you have got a Government who
understands the real needs of your membership and overwhelmingly
understands the need to create more jobs so that we can start to
create a more equitable society, you will be prepared as an
integrally important union in consultation with us, I am not sayig
it imposingly, but in consultation with us, in the mechanisms that
we will establish, as a result of the discussions we have in the
Labor Movement when wve were in Opposition and now in Government,
that you will play your part in assisting us in getting the
economny moving at a higher level of activity to create more jobs
those that are desperately needed. These are overall objectives
but there can't be anything more important, I pledge to you
without hesitation that, in all that we do we will be consulting
with you, that we will also be consulting with those employers, So
that we can get, as far as possible, the best input from all of you
to the decisions that we take. While it may he a little bit
to have to exercise that restraint in 1983, I want to put to you
that the signs are there now, that the economy is about to turn
round, not only as a result of what is happening in this country,
but as a result also of some of the signs of increasing
activity overseas and, of course, something drought,
something that is going to give considerable impetus in many ways
in this country. So please, I do plead with you, to identify
yourselves with that broad program and noble objectives that we
have with the Trade Union Movement to cooperate with us in that
way. we were asking for restraint capacity for exercising
restraint and we can be looking for a sprinkling economy to move in
the next year and beyond and that will give us an economy in which
we will have a real capacity of not only to maintain, but to
improve the standards of living of all people in this community and
to do it in a way which provides equally to those who are in the
greatest need. . Until. those things, and I do have confidence that
you will respond profitably to what I am putting to you. I have
very much pleasure and again thank you for being here.....