PRIME MINISTER
FOR MEDIA 9 MARCH 1990
L. ABOR' S RURAL AND REGIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Labor has implemented an effective plan to improve the
primary industries and resources sector over its seven
years in office:
Maximising the sector's competitiveness through
general economic policy decisions
floating the dollar
deregulating the financial sector
lowering company and personal tax rates
setting achievable and economically justifiable
wages targets
fiscal surplus and expenditure restraint
lifting productivity, as the latest OECD
figures show
lifting employment and investment opportunities
Access Economics' list of $ 49 billion in
major investment projects under
construction, or committed includes
$ 7 billion in the mining sector
including in Mount Isa and another
$ 7 billion in the value adding
manufacturing sector also including in
Mount Isa
country areas have fully shared in the
strong job growth we have created.
Maximising returns through both an active
international trade policy and reforms to statutory
marketing authorities
improved access for beef to Japan, Korea and
other major markets
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successful GATT case against the US on sugar
support for the Wool Corporation
j flexibility for the Wheat Board
creation of the Australian Horticultural
Corporation development of the Cairns Group of agricultural
free traders
the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation
initiative the Innovative Agricultural Marketing and
Marketing Skills Program to enhance our export
opportunities
Minimising costs
abolition of tariffs on most of the sector's
inputs ( eg mining machinery, tractors,
harvesters) and reductions of most others
the estimated annual cost savings to
agriculture and to mining of our 1988 tariff
cuts is $ 460 million each by 1992
full rebate of diesel fuel excise for primary
producers a workable Income Equalisation Deposits scheme.
Improving the research and development base of the
sector agricultural research programs now receive more
than $ 125 million in dollar-for-dollar
Commonwealth grants; industry directs this
research energy research, including potential
alternative energy sources.
Conservation measures
Labor ( in 1983) recognised the national
significance of land degradation and instituted
direct Commonwealth assistance, via the
National Soil Conservation Program
the Decade of Land Care has brought together
the National Farmers Federation, the Australian
Conservation Foundation and the Commonwealth in
a $ 320 million long term initiative for land
rehabilitation, tree planting and bushland
conservation ( 118 1.
use of export controls to ensure forests are
managed sustainably
the Resource Assessment Commission will serve
to inform and where possible reconcile
conservation and resource development interests
creation of the Murray-Darling Basin
Commission, the Bureau of Rural Resources, the
National Resource Information Centre, the
National Afforestation Program, the forest
inventory administering quarantine: feral animal control;
and biological control of pests and weeds from
a conservation perspective, as well as
completing the brucellosis and tuberculosis
eradication program and upgrading exotic
disease preparedness
effective fisheries management.
Transport reforms
we implemented the recommendations of the Royal
Commission into Grain Handling, with estimated
cost savings to the grains industry of up to
per tonne. It took a Labor initiative to
overturn the anti-competitive practices of some
States. Australia and its grains industry are
the beneficiaries
International shipping has seen the
implementation of pro-competitive elements of
the Trade Practices Act, in order to provide
our export industries with some leverage
against shipping cartels
we are reforming the waterfront by replacing
3000 older, less skilled workers with 1000
better trained staff, tied to company
employment, not a pool. Competition for
labour, and pro-active efforts by the
Waterfront Industry Reform Authority will see a
break-down of inefficient management and work
practices we are also prepared to encourage the States to
both provide greater importer-exporter input
into their port authorities: and to ensure
that the terms and conditions their authorities
offer to private stevedoring firms enhance
competition
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coastal shipping will achieve OECD-equivalent
manning levels by 1992: up to one-third fewer
crew members than when we took office. With
the large-scale introduction of new and
efficient vessels, multi-skilling and
successful pioneering of new shipping trades
such as BHP's triangular services, our coastal
shipping is becoming increasingly competitive.
Continuing Voyage Permits offer a substantial
opportunity for appropriate use of foreign flag
shipping, including in new resource projects
( eg China Steel).
Social initiatives, as outlined in the December 1989
Rural and Regional Policy Statement, which referred
to measures and programs to
inform country people of their rights to
Commonwealth programs and services
review the current system of tax zone rebates,
in view of apparent anomalies in boundaries
take the special needs of country residents
into account, both in mainstream and special
programs, concerning health, education and
training, transport, communications, women's
affairs and Aboriginal affairs.
Future Reform Prnrces
To further our micro-economic reform agenda, the
Structural Adjustment Committee of Cabinet will meet
early in the next Hawke Government with a broad range of
reports in prospect, as responses to the Garnaut Report,
covering future tariff levels
international aviation deregulation, including
trans-Tasman trade aspects
telecommunications reform, including AUSTEL
reports on common user services; and cellular
mobile phones; also the future role of the
three telecommunications operators
a second international air freight carrier and
management of traffic at Sydney Airport.
We are also pursuing a series of Industries Commission
references on mining and mineral processing, electricity,
domestic pricing of raw materials, statutory marketing
arrangements, dairy, sugar and railways. These reports,
as they become available over the term of our next
Government, will provide the mechanism to approach a new
wave of State-based micro reform issues. We have taken
the tough decisions in the past and we will again.
.1 11 1 We will also
use the report of the Drought Policy Task Force ( due
shortly) as a basis for an explicit and stable
policy on drought that responds compassionately to
major droughts, conserves productive resources, and
encourages farmers to prepare for drought and
mitigate its effects
use the report of the review of Commonwealth
Statutory Marketing Authorities, in consultation
with industry, as the basis of further reforms to
enhance their
achievement of marketing objectives
accountability to both industry and the
Parliament commercial flexibility
role in encouraging further processing in
Australia.
And finally, there is the impact over our next term of
the initiatives which I have announced in recent days
the Provincial Cities and Rural Highways roads
program is for country areas only: $ 100 million per
year for the most important new roads projects
the availability of early breast cancer detection
services in regional areas, designed to save several
hundred lives over the next three years
rural and energy research must benefit from the
national research centres initiative, given that
some of Australia's most important research
priorities lie in that area
assistance for disadvantaged schools
and child care, particularly the commitments to
relief from fees at commercial centres, given that
these are more likely to develop as a result of the
special needs of country towns.
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