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PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON Pi J KEATING MP,
ADDRESS TO THE SA ALP ANNUAL CONVENTION, TRADES HALL,
ADELAIDE, 9 AUGUST 1992
6 09 PROOF COPY
Delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
Can I perhaps start by saying In times of difficulty the
ALP In often more maudlin than the community at largo and
it's so used to progress on all fronts whenever the
progress is thwarted or blunted It has a propensity to
become Introverted and reflective, There's an old saying
that when the going gets tough the tough get going and
that's basically what the federal Government has done.
We're ploughing on, we're making changes, we're
Instituting remedies and we're certainly not looking
back. The economy has been In recession, this we all know is
true, but the Government's doing everything possible for
us to emerge from it as quickly as possible.
Unemployment has risen we are doing everything we can
to get egiplqym~ ent going again, but we say that we must
move together, that economic progress and social progress
must be as one, moving in tandem, moving together. We
nay that economic change Is Imperative, but we won't let
the unemployed carry the burden of the adjustment of that
change, we say society must advance togpther, that we
have to look after those who are left behind and we say
that the great Australian and Labor traditions of
egalitarianism and fairness and decency. can only be
preserved In this way, moving together. The Government
using the power of Government, drawing down community
support, engaging in dialogue with various interest
groups, finding solutions, acting in concert, acting in
friendship. Real social change can only be assured in
this way, with the Government playing a role. That is,
not the Government withdrawing from society, but the
Government engaging society and playing a role
particularly when that role L3 necessary to make changes.
For many of the years that this Government has been in
office 41l of Its years we've used a consensus model
and much has been achieved. And don't let anyone tell
you that a consensus model has slowed change. Ln fact it
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has facilitated Change, it's facilitated economic change
and It's facilitated social change, that is talking to
people, talking to Interest groupa. understanding their
Positions, encouraging them to do things they mightn't
otherwise do and getting progress as a result,
In the 19808 Labor reletyed the foundations or Australia,
be totally certain of that. We ga~ ve Australia a new
external orientation, we developed for the first time an
open market economy, but we did it grafting on to it a
comprehensive and progressive social policy. We went and
put together something which I think has been unique
amongst nations, that Is a very rapidly changing economic
scene and policy wrapped together with a social policy
which ha. basically let the country move forward.
In other words we took the steps as all Labor Governments
are required to take thp steps, the tough steps to give
Australia an open market economy, but the difference Is
we did it with a Labor heart, we did It differently to
the way many other countries did it. And we made great
strides and it's worth recalling those strides.
In 1983 we started with a labour market of six million.
Today, despite the unemployment, it's a labour market of
million, It's twenty five per cent larger. We've
largely kept the gains of the 1980E it's just that it's
not now growing as rapidly although we saw 85,000 Job
growth in the last two months. But those. large gains,
that focus on employment we had in the~ 1980s has been
largely preserved.
GDFP, the total size of the economy in 1983 was 200
billion, this year It's over 400 billion. Expmrts whichl
we sought to provide for ourselvet from the industries In
the places where people live, In manufacturing industry
this~ year for the first time in our post-war history
we've seen manufactured exports outstrip mining and rural
exports for the first time. We defeated inflation,
wo've got the lowest Inflation rate in the OECD, we
defeated the thing which robs working pepople of their
savings which puts big mortgages on their backs which
makes us uncompetitive and gradually drains our economic
life blood away. We change the labour ifiarket with
enterprise bargaining in a way which will see trade
unions and business work together to Product productive
Industries and companies in a way we've never had under
the old centralised structure before. And of course,
we've revolutionised training, trade training and tertiary
education all In this period as well. We've set up
Medicare to give Australians the right to medical access
regardless of Income. We've improved participatioll in
education, as you know only three kids In ten completed
sde-coindary'school in 1983, that's now seven in ten and
we're heading for nine In ten. We've set up one of the
boat income support systems in the world with the Family
Allou; 2g Supplemnent. W.' vo Increased Waic rates of
pen~ lon, We've estab11chod eomiulsorj oc urat19qtj
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auperannuation for the whole work force and we've
revolutionised aged care with home and community care,
the hostel and nursing homes programs an~ d we've
revolutionised of course, Childcare by Multiplying by
five the number of places which existed when we came.
But as good as that is, it Is important as 41l that is we
want to build upon these things and make Australia a
country I think, that can be the envy of people abroad, a
society which has pride in itself and does things
together and does things with comprehension and
understanding. Australians I think, have got a great and unique
opportunity. We're the only nation in the world that has
a continent to itself arnd accordingly we have space, we
have clean air and we have good housing. There's not too
many countries like this, not now and as well as that we
have a good aocial Policy to look after people as well
and these possibilities are possibilities which I think
few have. Few in this room would exchange those things
to live~ in Tokyo or to live in Los Angles or to live in
New York. They are not possibilities which exist In
those places. But here if you are sick you get access to
Medicare. in the United States t you rolled up to a
hospital without that blue cross card In your pocket you
get turned away, whether their acute or otherwise.
Where In this country, aR I said a moment ago, seven kids
In tan complete secondary school and soon we hope to be
nine in ten, we've created fifty per cent of additional
places for universitios to give Australian kids access to
education, not fee paying, full fee paying like in many
countries like as Dr Hewson would have it but acceag
regardless of income and woe support you you're on a
low income with Austudy arid we even support you in years
eleven and twelve with it.
Or vocational eucation. In the last Couple of wooks tho
Government with the States has revolutionised vocational
education. We'll see In a policy in which your own
Premier played a substantial and key role the development
of a national training authority whIeb will dofor
vocational education what the Commonwealth was able to do
for universities and give working class kids the great
bulk of kids who come out of secondary school or earlier
that change of participation in life in that training
through to a Job.
So whether It be in the sick or in education or the aged,
if you're old you get support with the basic pension or
as I said all the other things that are added on to thnt
rent assistance, home and community care, the hostel
program etc and If you're unemployed you get benefits,
you're not tipped out after nine months as Dr Howson
would propose or in the United States loft to yourselves,
youJ get support again rent assistance, 1he Family
Allowance Supplement, labour market prolrams to rntrain
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you to get you bank In the workforce and of course,
generally training after that and now as we have throuuh
the 19800 jobs and as we want in the 1990s jobs, hot
interesting jobs.
go, we can guarantee a good existence for ourselvots with
an economy which serves us, which provides jobs where we
lI ve In the capital cities and interosting jobs, but
importantly doing the clever things. NJow a deleqate a
few moment. ago mentioned this term the clever country
and that's what we want to be and indeed that's what wo
must be, but remember what the Liberals did to tie. They
left UID as an Industrial muSetum. They thought the lucky
country only had to dig up another mound of rocks or grow
another paddock fuall of wheat and that's all we needed to
do and if you went to find a job you found it at a mining
site, in the rural areas of Australia, in South
Australian or Queensland or Western Australia, If youi
wanted a job you went there. But it wasn't enough. We
had to find the jobs In the capital cities and the
provincial cities where people live, doing clever things.
They provided us with no research and development, that
had pretty well collapsed. As I said there was no
training in school, how could you have a clever country
when only threp kids In ten completed secondary school?
and fewer completed tertiary qualifications. Our terms
nf trade were slipping: in the 1950s a bag of wheat
brought you a truck load of manufac~ tures by the 1980s it
brought you virtually nothing, yet these were the staples
we were selling and of cotirse, the service sector as we
know it today barely existed. This was the thing which
the Coalition Left us.
But of course, what they want to do is do the unclever
thing again. They now want us to compete in the
international division of labour which will do
Australians no good and they now want to drive wages
down, drive down the wages of young people and-p6-t-
Australians onto three quarters of their award pay to try
to make the place, as they put it, competitive. But
competitive with who? Competitive with the IndnnesiAn6?
I was In Surabaya abouit two months ago, Surabaya has hid
billion US of investment for iwoe consecutive yearn.
It's basically a modern Industrial region. Its proceso
workers are employed at $ 1.30 Australian a day, $ 7 a
week, for semi'. skilled process workers. That's the
division that Dr Hewson wants us to compete in.
The same people in Australia are paid $ 375 per week. So
even if you cut the pay In half you wouldn't be
competitive and yet to try and embark Upon such a policy
iz nnt only cruel, but a hoax driving Australians to ao
the things which other people are going to do more
cheaply. The unclever things that we should be out uf
and Into the things which we can do well and we know woe
can do well.
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But this Idea of $ 3 per hour, or three quarters of your
current pay, no awards, holiday pay, all the other
conditions of employment to go under common law
contracts, the law of the jungle to provide to obtain in
the Industrial relations area, rancour, division,
confrontation R1l for what? To do something more
clever? No. To try and do the old things that we're now
trying to remove ourselves from to do the more clever
things that give us a future.
We made a decision for instance, to have a car inut. r.
We believe the role of Government says that you decide
what you want to do and to decide what things and In
which Industries people employed. In this State, In this
city the car industry Is Important, Labour decided we
want a car Industry, we've had it, we continue to want
It, we want an efficient lower cost industry, but we want
a car industry. We're not going to wipe It out with a
zero tariff. We want a chemical industry through our
Factor F program. We want a computer industry. We want
strong parts of tie textile, clothing and footwear
industry to remain strong and viable for AustraliA. We
want to do the clever things, but we don't want to be
doing the things that we can't and haven't been able to
do well in the past and can't do competitively in tho
future. In elaborately transformed manufactures, we've.
now seen about thirty per cent growth a year, they've
literally trebled since the early 1980s and are now
leading the charge in our manufactured exports. We want
to be Fielling our brains not our brawn and how can you
hope to sell you brains if you're happy for kids to leave
school untrained at sixteen to wander around the labour
market looking for dead end jobs that have long since
disappeared and not putting the effort into vocational
education or not putting the support Into universities or
to say that freedom to achieve to a kid is to go and buy
a full fee paying place in a university if their paronts
can afford the $ 15,000 or $ 20.000 a year after tax to put
one person through liniversity.
That's their idea of opportunity anid freedom, their Idea
of adding value, their Idea of Osoing the clever thing,
their Idea of the clever country.
Now of course, as we know stmple ideas were never the
stuff of Government. Government is a complex matter and
it's a difficult matter and everybody who has any
axperience of it knows this to be true. But we're now
being fed this diet by the Conservatives that a simplo
thing-and simple Ideas will change Australia, where we
know that Australia is * a complex, like every other
country in society, a complex thing where complex
policies need to be bought to bear. And Dr Heweon's
proposing that we should have a consumption tax as a way
of solving all of our evils. As If another Primary tax
is going to change Australia or change it for the better
or solve all of the problems, long stonding problems
which Australia has had.
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Ito basically has one policy with two prongs, Putting
prices up and cutting wages. Putting prices up with a
fifteen per cent CST and cutting wages by cutting awards
and letting the award system expire and going to common
laiw contracts. And tho view Is that that simple policy
will change the way the country works. As if, for
instance labour rates in this c~ ountry are axceedingly
high, it's untrue. The wage share in the economy is at
1960s levels, the profit share wilt spring back to Its
highest level ever once there's some volume back there on
the bottom line of companies. It's not true that we need
a cut in wages. The average rate of income tax In
Australia Is 2 . S per cent. A 15 per cent consumption
tax Is a massive addition to taxation, a massive addition
to prices, a percentage point addition to prices
which will add 6-7 percentage points to Inflation which
will 6-7 per centage points to interest rates. And that
higher interest rate will buy more support for the
exchange rate, the exchange rate will appreciate, the
country will be less competitive.
These are the policies which they're supporting. They
think simple policies which they think will change
Australia. Or the view that medical protection goes,
that you got a health voucher, it basically Involves
reople Insuring themselves for health. And all the
people now who don't pay any Medicare levy, people up in
the $ 20-30,000 range with children who pay no levy at
all, will then he required to insure themselves through
private insurance. And of course, in education the
notion that the right of a working class kid to move
through secondary school and then stream into university
or into a high quality TAFE, that's a notion which Is
totally foreign to them, they're saying basically, the
places in universities will be left for those who can
afford the fees. This ts the sort of view they have and
of course, if you're unemployed it's because you
basically don't want to work and if you're unemployed,
you can go and took after yourself, go down to the St
Vincent de Paul society or the Smith Family after nine
months because you're on your own. And If you develop an
underclass in Australia, a group that slips behind,
something which for the first time In our life as a
society we would tolerate and all the divisions which
come with that, don't take any notice of that, they can
fend for themselves because If the wealthy are doing well
somp crumbs will drop from the table and they'll get
tugged along.
Now the tact is life in not simple, life is complex and
Government is complex. Since February this year, if you
lock at the things we've done as I've Said in the ' One
Nation' statement we set up the start then and just
completed the National Training Authority to lift up tho
one great weakness in our education system which is
vocational training. We're going to rebuild the rail
highway of Australia with a standard gauge between
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Adelaide and Melbourne so that Perth and Brisbane are
linked via Melbourne through Adelaide for the first time
a ribbon of rail around the country that a competent
trading nation should have. That Is, an option in rail
for the carriage of heavy goods and light goods If they
are to be carried competitively and efficiently against
road it's something a trading nation needs.
And can I say while I'm on that, that today I've written
to John saying that we're going to spend $ 12 million
refurbishing the Indian Pacific-rail We going to
spend $ 4 million iitiona I to the $ 3 million we
announced In ' Onle Nation' to spend at Islington, that's a
furthor $ 4 million to try and improve the quality and the
service and the maintenance facilities of this part of
the national rail system. We'll develop a better
interface between the ports and wharves of Australia
because we need it. And whether it be Port Adelaide or
Port Melbourne through Dynon or Fisherman Islands at
Prisbane or better access across the continent across the
Nullabour from Fremantle, all these things we need
because a private company is not going to do it, a
private company Is not going to build a national rail
highway of Australia, a private company I' not going to
put together a new national training authority, a private
company 18 not going to put together the new airline
system we're currently in then position of putting
together, a private company is not going to build the view
road highway between Adelaide and Brisbane, a private
company Is not going to build those arterial ring roads
around the capital cities which we need to take traffic
out of the contre of the cities arnd to allow better
streaming of traffic~ around the continent.
All these things we have done in the last couple of
months, reshaped national training and developed am well
this great transition from school to work, the Carmichael
pilots which we~ had support for at the national meeting
on youth which we're now funding and with the National
, Training Ath) r-ity will concertina down by yiais tj
important transition to regard those 15-19 years as a
period of vocational preparation. That we'd done in the
last couple of months, established a flew airline system
in the last couple of months, if we can glet the Senate to
agree a new pay TV system in the last couple of months, a
refurbishment of the national rail highway and the two
billion expenditure this year on roads.
We'vie done these things because they need to be done.
They're not going to be fixed with a simple Idea of a
consumption tax. How's a consumption tax going to change
the way in which the rail system works? Or a consumption
tax change the way in which trade training works or the
slrlinet? Government io complex and it's got to be dealt
with with its complexity and the Government has to deal
with talk to each of the groups In the community to see
what can be done and to draw down that strength which
we'va always been able to entwine together to produce
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something stronger and better for Australia. Th~ at is,
giving Australia and giving the Government a proper role
and understanding what that role Is.
N~ ow with Dr Hewson-of course, we have simple ideas,
ideology always penalties. Everyone has to wear a
penalty. There's no notion that it ahould be an
objective of Government in Australia to actually pay
people more money, that higher incomes Is an objective of
Government policy, that a better social system is an
objective of Government policy. Their view is no, lower
wages Is an objective, l* Ss of a system Is anl objective,
penalties. Dr Hewuon wants to run the government so the
government can do leass. The ILtberals want government in
Australia so government can withdraw, so that government
can get out to let the private economy do these things.
There's no country in the world where this is vogue
anymore, wher~ e the greed is good syndrome iR the vogue.
It might have been tn the United States, in Reagan'R
republican America of the 1980s or in Thatcher's Britain.
It is no longer in the United States, it Is no longer in
Rrttaln, it's not longer the theme of Prime Minister John
Major for instance. It's no longer the themes you see
running at the deumocrati~ c convention or In the US press.
Rut here in Australia Heweon believes that greed ia good,
survival of the fittest, simple Ideas, pushing people
down iA the way forward and thinks he can get the jump
all because the recession has meant employment has
stopped. That Is because employment has not been growing
in the last eighteen months like it did ferociously
through the 1980s that this It his chance to impose this
sterile drab ideology upon the rest of us.
Well the fact In we've still got news for him and we'll
be fighting him on that philosophy right the way throuigh,
H~ is view is Government without consultation, talk to
nobody, don't talkt to unions, don't talk to businese,
he's attacked the unions won't have anything to do with
them, he's attacked business for talking to the
Ahovernment and supporting us, every week he lectures them
on not supporting him enough with his barren ideology and
this week we see that not only Is It going to be
government under him, would It bO government without
consultation, but it will also be government without
bureaucracy. Because now he is going t~ o have the five
major accountancy firms In there Crafting the tax laws,
in an improper policy that no major party worth its sait
would dare utter, which no Coalition government in the
past would dare embrace, having the five accountancy
firms in there sitting drawing up the taic laws of this
country.
This is the sort of stuff he is: turning theResorwo
Rank o~ n its head and as the Governor of the Reserve Bank
said eloquently " I'm not going to sit by why some
dIckhead minister puts Attila the Hun in charge of
monetary policyo.
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The Liberals say we're always the ones, we're the people
who break the traditions. We don't break the traditions,
Labor always abides with the traditions mainly beanse we
mae most of it. But the traditions of fairness, Aqutty,
fair go, pulling people along, not having an under claiss
of deprived people who can't find a job who don't got
benefits, who don't get 8 right to treat themselves when
they're sick, who don't get a right to educate their
kids. That sort of thing is busting the traditions of
Australia. This guy's a wrecker, he want's to come in
with an ideology which is not only barren but entirely
strange to the rest of us. Strange to the Labor Party
Indeed, strange to the Coalition and a lot of the
mainstream people In the Coalition would regard this
stuff As poison, but sitting-there because ostensibly he
has a lead In the polls, but not Bitting there with any
comfort at this sort of policy.
So we say thete Is role for government In Australia. If
you want to run the government of Australia It's to let
the Government do things. And whether that Is creating
industries or supporting industries or leading structural
change or continuing with a social policy which is
spreading the joy. which is making the place fairer or
more decent or finding our place in the world or coming
to terms with the original Australians living at peace
with the landscape, worrying about the environment,
making Australia a better, nicer, fairer place to live to
what government Is all about. It's not about government
getting out, about government withdrawing, about leavinU
It only to the wealthy to do well and leaving the rest
fall behind,
Now these are the things the next election will be fought
over. Because I think at the next election we're going
to see an ideology divide like we haven't seen in a long
time. Now I know all Labor party leaders say that
there's them and tin, but this time there really is themn
and us,. Tt's them with an ideology which is barren and
now forgotten In the northern hemisphere, being given its
last trot in Australia in the 1990s, by someone who has
had virtually only a cursory association with public
life, who doesn't understand the society of Australia and
has never listened to the resonances of Australia, Wh~ o's
come in wit~ h a doctrinaire ideological policy which has
the market being the sole arbiter of all that is good.
the note device upon which all change is produced and
where the role of government Is basically to get otat.
Now we may it's wrong and we say It's wrong because we're
continuing the changes. We're not sitting by maudlin
saying well isn't It a pity we've had a recession and
employment has stopped. We're saying look, we started
with six million jobs, we've job seven and a halt still,
7.6 in fact.. We've put this great social change int~ o
place and we're going to improve it, we'll be improving
It we improved it in ' One Nation' and we'll improve it
in the coming Budget. We're going to continue with the
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big nocial chaiges and economic changes, whether It be
the development of a proper vocational education system,
giving AustraliAns the right to travel by air at
reasonable prices, developing back our rail system which
hasi fallen into disrepair, pulling the States outlying
from Sydney and Melbourne closer in through these rail
and road highways and making Australia truly, as we said
In February, one nation.
These are things that show Labor is the great building
part~ y of Australia and we're still in there doing it, we
haven't lost our way, we haven't lost our faith and we
haven't lost our heart and we haven't lost the will to
drive the changes on. And they can attack us about the
recession, but to make the point here is to make the same
point about Britain, the Unites States, Canada, Germany,
France, Japan, they are all in the same boat, growing at
tinder two per cent this year, we-re all living with the
debt~ hangover of the 1980a, but we'll soon shake it off.
But as we do we.' ll keep pride in our achievements and
keep making them, adding one achievement to the next and
not looking back, not wondering about the past, but just
comprehending the future and giving Australiane that
unique place In the world as t said. A continent to
ourselvesc situated in the fasted growing part of the
world the Asia-Pacific, looking to that area of the
world PxternAlly, having our orientation shifted out not
In, developing smairt and clever jobs, producing smart and
clever things to give Australians good work and good pay,
doing interesting things and looking after those who've
not been able. to look after themselves as well as we
would like.
Thene are the things we stand for and that's still
currency in the life blood of Australian politics,
That's why we're still In there with a chance, a biq
chance. So don't be Introspective or reflective or
aiaudltn, just get on with It and understand that we are
the only great party of change in Australia and we're
still the ones who will make the changes Australia neFeds.
Thank you.