E. O. E. PROOF ONLY SPEECH BY PRIME MINISTER
WARWICK COMMUNITY DINNER
WARWICK 25 SEPTEMBER 1985
Marianne Beddall, David Beddall, Stan Walsh and Members of
the Queensland Parliament.
Thank you very much for being here and may I say while I am
talking about Members of Parliament from the other side of
politics, I do appreciate you being here. I am also very
pleased to be able to say that an ex-Federal Member of
Parliament, again from the other side of the fence, Syd
Barnes, who was the Minister for Territories and who I knew
very well has sent his apologies and said he would very much
like to have been here. And may I say in welcoming those
distinguished guests, in particular, and you ladies and
gentlemen, that one of the reasons I am so very pleased to be
here with you tonight in Warwick is that I know that this is
a very mixed audience and there is a great number of people
here who have been loyal and steadfast members and supporters
of my Party, the Labor Party. But there are also many here
who are of the other side of politics. I thank you
particularly for being here and I think it is a
characteristic of our great Australian society, particularly
of non-metropolitan Australia, that we can have a gathering
such as this and I do thank you very much for all being here.
Talking about people who have been active in politics, * I
wonder if Andy Young said for those of you who have not been
active and involved in the Labor Party, if I did, however,
pay a particular tribute to two members of the Party who are
here tonight who have given an enormous number of years and
service, almost a hundred years of service between them to
the Party. I refer to Eddie Moyle and Don Mulcahy. I thank
them because all political parties in this country depend
upon loyal hard working members and I have had the
opportunity of meeting both them. And on behalf of our great
Party I do thank you for those years of service. And may I
also in talking about individuals also say thank you to Phil
Doyle for the pleasure of your company here Phil and to say
how pleased we are that you have recovered from a very
serious operation. It is your first night out. I don't know
that your cardiologist would approve of the diet that you had
tonight. You had a lot to eat but that also leads me, if I
could, to say thank you to the ladies out there. I have seen
a lot of big functions where there are hundreds of people
present. Catering for such a big mob is very very difficult
but I can honestly say I have never sat down in such a big
gathering where the meal put in front of me seems as though
it has been personally prepared. Thank you very much indeed.
Now could I give those you who haven't yet heard a good piece
of news. David Beddall has been on my back and on the back of
the Government for a long time and properly on our back about
the needs of this area of Warwick and he said that you really
should have a TAFE here. So earlier this year we set aside
half a million dollars for definition work and following that
the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission has
recommended to the Government that we should make a decision
to go ahead with the TAFE College here. That hasn't yet gone
to Cabinet but if you are Prime Minister and you can't make a
couple of decisions yourself it's not worth being in the job.
So I announce that when that recommendation comes to Cabinet
it will be approved in 1986. There will be half a million
dollars immediately in 1986 to commence the construction of
your TAFE College and the whole amount of $ 6.8 million will
be made available so that you will have your TAFE College in
Warwick. Now I know, my friends, that here in the audience tonight
there are people from a wide range of occupations. There are
those of you who are employed in factories and there are
those of you who work on your own farms. There are people who
have retired. There are young people. You have different ways
of earning your occupation but there is one thing which joins
us all together. Whatever our occupation, whatever our
occupation is going to be or whatever we have done now or in
retirement and that is, I believe, the love of this country
and the hope and the expectation that we are going to be
able, as Australians, to develop the resources of our country
in a way which will mean whatever our occupation we are going
to be able to get fair go. We are gradually going to be able
to have the opportunity of a better standard of living and as
well as those of us who are in occupations that we will also
as a nation properly be able to show compassion to those in
our society who through no fault of their own, either because
they are now elderly or they are disabled, or through reasons
beyond their own fault are unemployed, we share, I believe, a
commitment and a compassion that as we develop as a society
we will do the right thing by those who need the community as
a whole.
Therefore, if I can tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen, to talk
with you about our shared aspirations and hopes. Because I
know that it is a mixed audience, I will not attempt to make
a stark part of this speech, although I know that you will
understand that if I am talking about what I believe we have
been able to achieve since I have had the great honour and
responsibility of being Prime Minister of this country, I
will be talking about our achievements. I will be talking,
however, in terms which I hope all of you will be able to
identify with. Not only in terms of what's happened in the
recent past but I hope that you will be able to share with me
my vision of what this great country is going to be.
Let me talk, therefore, first a little bit about our recent
history and what we have tried to do to bring this great
country of ours which we all love up into the forefront of
the nations of the world.
It is the case and I don't want to go into the details of the
past, but it was the case you know that when we came to
office in the beginning of 1983 that our country was in poor
shape. We had high rising unemployment, high inflation. It
wasn't a country that was pulling together and working
together. There was too much conflict in this country and I
have had a great hope for many years before I got into the
Parliament that we as Australians could do better.
I looked at this country of ours and I saw a country which I
believed almost any other country in the world would pleased
to exchange places with. What country in the world could
match Australia in terms of the resources we have got.
Think about it. A vast country, a vast island continent with
every imaginable resource that you can think of. Land itself,
almost in a sense unlimited land, great resources of mineral
wealth beneath our land, vast oceans around us filled with
marine life and we have a people well trained, a people of
whom the tactic and concept of terrorism is alien. A country
within which the concepts of parliamentary democracy were
well routed.
Now you see if you think of that, very few countries in the
world could match what we have. And it was a matter of great
disappointment-to me as I looked at this country before I
went into the Parliament and I had the responsibility of one
our great institutions to work not only for the working men
and women but to work with business and with governments. It
was a matter of great regret to me that we didn't seem to
have together been sensible enough to realise just how
magnificent those resources were and what we could do with
them. And so I made a pledge to the people of Australia when
I was given the honour of leading my Party in the beginning
of 1983. I made a pledge to the people of Australia that we
would try in government to bring the people of Australia
together to try and see what we could do to end the conflict
that we had experienced, the antagonisms that we had
practiced one upon the other. And neither side in industry
was blameless in that. And to see whether instead of being a
country which had ceased to grow except in terms of growing
unemployment and rising inflation, to see whether we couldn't
together turn that around.
And so you will recall as Australians through our great
organisations we came together in April of 1983 for the
Summit. And I asked you and Australians through your
organisations to join with us in trying to turn the country
around. I said then because I believe that to be true as I do now
that no government, certainly my government, we don't have
the monopoly of wisdom. I believe that we had good quality,
good ideas but we certainly didn't know everything and so we
asked you the people of Australia through your organisations
to join with us, pool our ideas and then set about the task
of reconciliation, reconstruction and recovery.
On the occasion of that Summit we talked together and then we
together went about our business. As a matter of pride to me
to be able to come out into a place like Warwick in nonmetropolitan
Australia where you have such a cross section of
Australians. It is a great pleasure and a matter of pride to
me to be able to come to you now after two and a half years
and say to you that together, not just government, but to say
that together as Australians we have done it.
Let me, without burdening you with a great list of
statistics, tell you what you have done. What we have done
together. Where we had zero growth at the beginning of 1983
we have now had two years of growth of 5% in GDP. We now
enter our third year of 5% growth. That hadn't happened in
any of the previous seven years but together we have done
that and we are now doing that at a higher rate than any
other country in the world. We have now created between us
430,000 new jobs. The highest rate of job creation that was
experienced in this country ever. The OECD came out yesterday
and said that Australia is at the top of the world league.
Our employment growth in 1985 and projected for 1986 is
faster and better than anywhere else in the world. Now that's
what we have done together.
Where before we were spending so much time fighting one
another industrially so often without fundamental reason we
now have a situation where as Australians we are able to
point to the fact that we have got the lowest level of
industrial disputation in this country for 17 years.
We have got a level of inflation which is half what it was
two and a half years ago. We are building more homes now than
we have for a decade. And whatever way you look at it you and
your fellow Australians working with government have produced
an economy which is now not at the bottom of the heap, which
is recognised in the rest of the world as the best performing
economy in the western world. And we are entitled together to
be proud of that.
I want to also say to you that we don't regard, that is
government doesn't regard and I don't think you regard
economic growth, important as it is, as a total end in
itself. What growth is about is to try and provide the means
of happiness and satisfaction to the people in this country.
Of course, those who are in jobs, those who were in jobs and
now those who are in the extra 430,000 jobs that we have
created, they are better off than they were.
But we also recognise that we have got a responsibility to
the less fortunate and therefore I think as a matter of pride
to each one of you, to all of us as concerned and
compassionate Australians, that in this last two and a half
years as well as growing in the way we have and getting to
the top of the world league of growth. At the same time as we
have done that we have been able to give $ 1.5 billion to
those in need in this community beyond that amount which we
were bound to give under indexation. That is an additional
billion so that those most in need have been able to
benefit with us and we grow like that.
Now while I talk in aggregates like that, those aggregates
really break down into the happiness of individuals. Now it
is the case obviously in a country like Australia that not
every sector is going to be able to participate in that
general economic well being.
And I must, of course, in talking in an area like this talk
about our rural economy because the fate, if you like, or
welfare of the rural economy in terms of the incomes that
they enjoy are not simply to determined by what happens
within our Australian economy. Overwhelmingly, what happens
in our rural economy, the health of o. ur rural economy is
determined by the prices that are received by our rural
producers on the international markets of this world. And the
great tragedy for Australian rural producers today is that
they amongst the most efficient highest productivity
producers in the world are getting a raw deal because of the
actions predominantly of the Europeans.
The Europeans are pursuing a common agricultural policy which
involves massive subsidies to relatively uneconomic
producers. They are producing infinitely more than is
necessary to feed their own people and with those great and
growing surpluses that are emerging under that subsidisation
policy they are corrupting international markets. And the
great sufferers are the efficient producers of the world.
The Bureau of Agricultural Economics has just produced a
massive study for us-* which has looked at the impact of the
common agricultural policy of the Europeans and it shows that
Australia over the last five years has been robbed of $ 1
billion per annum as a result of the corruption of
international markets by Europeans.
Now we can't of ourselves change that but I want to say that
I went to Brussels in February of this year. I went there and
I spoke directly and in unqualified terms to the leaders of
the European Commission and told them that what they were
doing was wrong. But not only wrong in terms of what it was
inflicting upon especially Australian producers, it was also
wrong in terms of their own economy because the cost and
price and wages structure of the countries of Europe have
been pushed up because of these perverted policies that they
are pursuing. The prices which their own people pay for rural
products which go into their wages cost and price structure
are much higher than they would be if the didn't have this
policy. So I tried to tell that not only were they hurting us
but they were also hurting themselves. And I hope that in
continuing to put that message to them strongly there and
when they visit us here that we will on behalf of our great
rural industries start gradually to get some sense into the
international marketing mechanisms of our country.
We are pursuing, we of the countries of our region and with
the major countries of the world, the proposal that there
should be a new multilateral trade ground. And that that
shouldn't just concern itself with manufactured goods but it
should also concern itself with agricultural products because
it is appropriate that there should be reasonable sanity in
international marketing arrangements so that producers who
are the most efficient in the world, which are ours, should
not have their incomes corrupted in that way. And I give you
the pledge that we will continue to do that because that is
where the major problem is. We recognise that there are some
things that we can do in the government and I am proud to say
that in terms of the growth of cost faced by rural producers
compared with the 12.6% annual average rate of cost increase
that faced the rural sector in the seven years before we came
to government, we have halved that so that the rate of
increase in costs has come down from 12.5% to 6%.
We have tried to more than just having a sensible economic
policy which has reduced costs and reduced the rate of
inflation. We have recognised that there are specific things
that we should do and in this last Budget we have now given
the complete rebate in regard to diesel fuel so that primary
industry now is the only sector of Australian industry which
has that complete rebate and I believe they should have it
because they deserve it. And as far as that section of rural
industry is concerned which is concerned with grain
harvesting, I think you will approve of the fact that we have
now reduced or removed the tariff on grain harvesters and
replaced that with a bounty which is of importance to you.
That total package is worth in the order of $ 50 million and I
give the pledge to the rural community that despite the fact
that they have expressed in a rather dramatic way their
unhappiness with their lot in the sense of rough things about
us, I can understand that. If you have been hurt in the way
that the rural sector is in these international markets, you
are going to express your concern. I understand that. Despite
that fact I give you the pledge that my government will
continue to pursue economic policies within Australia that
will maintain within measurable and containable bounds the
rate of cost increases and do whatever we can in consultation
with your organisations to do those things which are going to
best meet your needs.
As they say, ultimately the condition of rural Australia is
going to be determined by getting good sense into the
Europeans. And I can tell you it is pretty hard getting good
sense into them. Just try the French, for instance, at the
moment and see where you get.
Now those are the things, my friends, that have happened. I
believe that you will say with me, I would think in a sense
whatever your political persuasion, I think we all know that
Australia is a better country now as we come towards the end
of 1985 than it was two and a half years ago.
Not because simply we are in the top of the league in terms
of economic performance but more fundamentally we are better
as a country because we are working together better as a
country and that is how we have got to the top of the league.
Now it is not enough for us as a people, for me as Prime
Minister heading a government, it is not enough simply to say
well we have got over our immediate problems, we are on the
road again. What we have got to be thinking about is our long
term future. And what I would like to do in conclusion just
for a few minutes is to share with you if I may my vision,
the governments vision of the future of this country.
We are not going to be able to shape the future of this
country and create a country which will be a worthy
inheritance for our children if we try and regard ourselves
as an isolated country here by ourselves, putting a wall
around Australia, some 16 million people and saying to the
other 5 billion, it will be 6 billion by the end of this
century, 6 billion plus as we go into the 21st century. We
are not going to be able with 16 million people to say to 6
billion we forget you, we put a wall around ourselves, we
will look after ourselves. The world is not like that.
If our children are going to inherit a country which will
make the fullest possible use of these vast resources to
which I have referred. We have to part of the world. And we
are fortunate that physically we are placed in that part of
the world of Asia and West Pacific which is growing faster
than anywhere else. We have the great opportunity now of
making a contribution to and benefitting from the growth of
this part of the world. That is why in looking to this
forward picture for Australia I have attached so much
importance to developing the relations with the countries of
this region and with no country has it been more important to
develop those relations than with China.
What is happening in China today is the single most important
thing that is happening in the world. You have a country
there which approximately a little under one quarter 20% of
the worlds population. It is throwing off the shackles of the
deadening Marxist-Leninist ideology which had confined its
economic performance. It is stimulating enterprise in that
country. It's standards of living are growing. It's opening
its doors to the outside world and because of the
relationship that I have been able to form with the
leadership of China which has been built upon by my Ministers
and by industry that has gone there and by representatives of
our workers Australia now is in a position where it can say
that it has a better relationship with China than any other
country has in the world. And that means that we are opening
up great markets, great opportunities for our rural
producers, for our mineral producers, for our iron and steel
industry, for the wool and textile industry, for our
transport industry and we are going over the years ahead now
with China to develop a relationship which will be of
fundamental importance for the future welfare of our country.
And we are doing that also with the other countries of the
region, the other fast growing countries of the region so
that we will have a relationships which will mean that we
will be able to use our resources, not just dig up iron ore
and coal out of the ground, not just send wool and wheat, as
important as all those things will be. But we will be able to
develop new industrial enterprises which in conjunction with
our friends in China will mean we will be able to diversify,
expand our economy in a way in which will create jobs.
But the other thing that we must think about when we are
thinking of this vision of the future what sort of country
is it going to be for the children to whom we hand over this
country? What sort of education and training are we going to
give to our young people? And that's why in the only national
address to the nation I have made so far since being in
office has been about young people. And that was just before
the Budget and I said we are going to make education and
training and the employment creation opportunities for the
young our Priority One.
Without going into all the details tonight because there
isn't time. I simply want to say to you that on behalf, I
know, of all the parents and the older people in this
country, what we are doing is to create a situation where I
believe by the end of this decade there will be no more
unemployment amongst our 16 and 17 year olds. They will
either be staying in the education system or going on to
university for further technical training or they will be
going into employment or they will be going into our new
traineeship system. So our young people are going to have the
full opportunity to develop and train the talent which each
one of them has. Not each child is going to star academically
in the early stages of education. They may never star in the
education system but there is virtually no child in this
country who hasn't got some talent or other which if given
the opportunity can be developed to give that child the
opportunity of developing into a person which is going to
have the capacity for meaningful occupation and also the
opportunity to make a bulk contribution to this country.
So what we are doing in the field of education and training
is to try and create into the future a workforce of educated
and trained young people who are going to be able use and the
develop the great natural resources we have and to be part of
an outward looking Australia which is going to sell its
products in these fast growing areas of the world with which
we are developing these relations.
So my friends, that is the sort of vision that I have and my
government has and I believe that so many Australians, and I
think the overwhelming majority of Australians, can share
with us. So let me, if I can, in coming to Warwick give you,
as it were, a progress report. Together, I think, we deserve
good marks the people of Australia. We have been sensible,
we have learnt that it's better to work together. If we work
together we can all be winners.
And the second thing I say in giving you that progress report
is to say lets now that we have got the reconciliation, we
have got the recovery, lets work on the reconstruction
together because we have shown the rest of the world and
ourselves that we can turn this economy around in a short
time. Let's go on and prove not only to the rest of the world
but to our young people in particular that we have
discharged, as mature and sensible Australians, the vast
obligation that is imposed upon us as being the inheritants
of this country which has been handed on to us by our elderly
citizens to take advantage of these great resources that are
part of our inheritance.
We have finished our parts as mature Australians, let us be
able to say that we have so worked, we have so co-operated
that the young people of this country will go on into the
21st century with a country which has an economic
infrastructure, a quest to develop those resources, a quest
to be part of this growing world and an Australia which will
have the capacity to make a contribution to the rest of the
world in terms of trying to make that a more peaceful world.
Because ultimately all these things that we will have done
together to turn our economy around, to develop our
resources, to train our young people, ultimately all those
things will have been in vain if we can't live in a world of
peace.
And that is why on your behalf, I and my government are
trying at all the relevant international forums to work for
meaningful disarmament. Not to say unilaterally that
Australia will disarm because that doesn't make sense. We
want both sides to disarm in a meaningful.....
TAPE ENDS