PRIME MINISTER
EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
AUSTRALIAN EXPORT AWARDS
SYDNEY 14 NOVEMBER 1987
Over the past four and a half years, one of the most
important tasks for Government Ministers has been talking:
talking about the serious challenge facing the Australian
economy and talking about the concerted community effort
required to confront that challenge.
I make no apology for my and my Ministers' frequent
speeches, press conferences, Parliamentary statements,
doorstops and other comments about these great issues.-
Clearly, community awareness of the dimensions of our
difficulties is increasing. And that means the essential
tasks of rebuilding the economy, and of reshaping attitudes
towards greater competitiveness and productivity, are well
underway. Export awards such as these have played an important part in
this process. I congratulate the organisers of this award
on twenty five years, valuable support of the Australian
export drive.
But obviously, only an optimist could believe the job is
done. The current account deficit is still unsustainably high
and our overseas debt continues to mount. We remain
heavily' dependent for our export income on unprocessed
raw materials for others to turn into useful products,
and a few very simply transformed manufactures. V
The balance of payments constraint dominates our
economic choices and our exposure to the vagaries of
international capital markets was all too clearly
illustrated by the recent crash.
There are however many rays of light. Tonight is an
occasion to celebrate some of them.
This occasion belongs not to Government, nor to Austrade,
nor to the CAI, although we might all justly claim some
reflected glory. -U
' 34
The night properly belongs to the 244 companies who applied
for this year's awards and who have taken the initiative to
compete in the international marketplace and whose goods and
services are in some degree bringing home the bacon.
we are going to hear tonight mostly of the award winners and
the larger group of finalists from whom those winners were
selected, but we should not forget that every applicant had
a success to point to and a story to tell of opportunities
taken and adversity overcome.
The other day, Bill Ferris of Austrade referred to
successful exporters as " national heroes". That status is
frequently accorded, and rightly so, to our sportsmen and
women who make it in international competition. The praise
we give the Borders, the Fenechs and the Gardners is well
merited. But how much more important to the future of
Australia are the efforts of the national heroes whom we are
congratulating tonight.
Now, I don't pretend that these export heroes are acting out
of some altruistic patriotism. The profits awaiting the
successful exporter overseas are too great for that. For
instance, the companies which applied for these awards have
consistently over the past five years netted more than twice
as much profit on each dollar of export sales as they did on
domestic sales.
The companies that applied are not, obviously, a random
sample of Australian industry.
For that reason it may be interesting to give you some of
the statistics which emerge from the data submitted by the
companies which applied for these awards.
They provide a thumbnail sketch of what an Australian
company needs to do to make inroads into the export market.
First, practically all of them have deliberately chosen a
strategy of exports. They are motivated to export, they
have worked hard at it and, as a group, they attribute their
success in exports primarily to the drive and persistence of
particular executives or other employees.
Successful export, it appears, is very much about people
people who have the capacity to plan, the entrepreneurial
skills and the drive to put those plans into practice, and
the willingness to go to potential markets, find out what is
needed in those. markets and come home and do it.
It is therefore most appropriate that tonight, for the first
time, there will be an award made for individual achievement
in export. Successful exporting is a team sport, but every
team has its stars and there is nothing like an emphasis
on the all important human factor to bring home to everyone
that their personal efforts do count, however humble or
exalted their position in the hierarchy-. 0U( 0
3
Let me list a few more of the statistics about this group of
companies. Innovation is alive and well:
100 of them began export in 1983 or later.
99 of them described their export activities over
the past five years as being primarily the sale of
new products to new markets.
* Small enterpreneurs have a big role to play in exports
Exactly one half of the applicants employed fifty tin)
or fewer people. In the short term most of ' our
exports will be generated by large corporations
from our traditional export industries. But if we
are to break away from heavy dependency on
commodity exports it will be substantially through
the entrepreneurial and innovative skills fostered
in smaller enterprises.
* Language skills must be more widely acquired:
only 87 companies employed people fluent in at
least one of Japanese, Chinese, Arabic or French.
on the whole, we are fortunate that so many
foreigners do us the courtesy of speaking to us in
our own language.
New Zealand and the Pacific, South East Asia, West
Europe and North America are the most important markets,
in terms of sales value, for most Australian exporters.
However it seems there are few climes so exotic
that some Australian goods and services are not
available.
Now, however, let me make some invidious comparisons between
the 38 companies which made the finals of these awards and
the larger group of applicants. This is not comparing
success with failure; to pick up the Ferris metaphor again,
it is comparing super-heroes with heroes.
The finalists were more export dependent than the others:
over 45 per cent of their sales went to export and 94 per
cent of their net profit derived from those sales; the
comparable figures for the non-finalists were 12 per cent of
sales to export and 28 of their net profit.
The finalists, on average, made over 15 personal visits to
their overseas clients in 1986-87, compared with 9 by the
others. A greater proportion of the finalists employed people who
were fluent in one or more of Japanese, Chinese, Arabic or
French. 0 01253 6
Ladies and gentlemen,
Max Weber gave us the maxim " politics is the art of the
possible". He also gave us " Government is slow boring
through hard boards".
I hope that is not a description of the Ministerial talking
which I mentioned at the outset.
Its relevance is instead that it expresses well the hard
work and patience required by the Government, by export
companies, by trade unions and by the whole nation if we are
to diversify and increase our exports to the degree
required.
That I am afraid is a long term task. We cannot expect
immediate results.
We can and should however congratulate those companies
including tonight's finalists and award winners which have
begun to take seriously the task of exporting. For that is
the task on which our long-term prosperity as a nation so
clearly depends. 0 4? 5z 3 -11