For media 31 July 1984
I greatly welcome the announcement by the Victorian State
Government and Alcoa of Australia Limited, that agreement
has been reached on the development of the Portland
Aluminium, Smelter.
This project will be important to sustaining the strong
recovery that is evident in the Victorian economy, and the
Australian economy as a whole.
It is an immensely important project in itself, and will
give a particular lift to the construction and heavy
engineering industries. Construction and heavy engineering
this year have been showing the first stirrings of growth
after a disastrous decline in 1982 and 1983, in the aftermath
of the so-called resources boom.
The agreement between Victoria and Alcoa represents a
creative reconciliation of the interests of the public in
receiving a reasonable return on its resources and capital
commitments, and th6 investors' requirements of a reasonabl~ e
return on their outlays. The arrangements for power pricing
achieve this reconciliation through a formula that shares
equitably the inevitable risks associated with major
export-oriented investment.
The Australian Government sees developments of this type
involving the intensive use of Australian workers' skills,
Australian natural resources, and international markets
in Australia's region and beyond as being critically
important to the industrial restructuring that we need
for sustained long-term growth. Continued expansion of
industries of this type can make a major contribution to
continued rapid employment growth with rising living
standards. Unlike the Fraser government, we do not look to -a boom in a
single sector to make Australia's economic future. We
seek mutually reinforcing growth across many sectors and
industries. And in this broad-based development, the
expansion of highly productive, export-oriented mineral
processing has a crucial part to play.
a 2.
The Australian Government believes that the combination
of stable domestic economic conditions, creative State
Government policies, co-operative industrial relations and
intelligent business management will restore growth to
the important resource and processing industries, and the
related construction and heavy engineering industries,
in the period ahead.
The Portland announcement is an important step. Sunday's
announcement by New South Wales Premier Neville Wran of
a package of measures to revitalise the base metals
industries based on Broken Hill was another. I am confident
of further progress through the year ahead.