ILL: ZU. INUV. 25Z 1( 11i NU. UZU r.' JI'Ut
PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
NATIONAL EXPORT AWARDS PRESENTATION
PARLIAMENT HOUSE CANBERRA 30 NOVEMBER 1992
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to be with you this evening to
participate in these awards and to celebrate Australia's
export achievements in the past year.
I commend the efforts of the Austrade and its fellow
sponsors in identifying Australia-1' best.
I know from travelling round the country how difficult
the final choices must have been.
There is so much talent out there, and commitment to
excellence is becoming a defining quality of much of our
business and industry.
These awards are a recognised national institution. For
nearly thirty years they have recognised the tremendous
contribution Australian exporters make to the nation's
prosperity. There is no one in this room tonight who doeS not know
that Australia's future depends upon our ability to
compete in the world.
Such is the level of economic awareness in Australia
these days, I doubt if there are many Australians who do
not know it.
For employment opportunities to expand and for living
standards to grow we need more companies like those
represented here tonight companies prepared to pursue
export opportunities and with the determination and nouse
to succeed.
You are here tonight because you have passed the ultimate
test and succeeded internationally. Passed it with
flying colours.
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You've done it by concentrating on quality, skills,
workplace relationships, design, technology, management,
market responsiveness. You've done it with international
-be-st practice.
The last twelve months have seen a difficult
international trading environments Not a few of our most
substantial trading partners are either in recession or
experiencing very slow growth.
So it is all the more a triumph to see Australian
ventures succeeding in a diverse range of markets.
We see this diversity among the finalists tonight.
we have Australians selling cars end car parts to the US
anid Asia.
Australians selling cheesecake and pet food to Japan.
Australian suppliers of beg-handling systems and
packaging machinery to Asia, France, the Pacific and the
US. Australians consulting on major infrastructure projects
in Asia.
Australians exporting high technology computer equipment
and software around the world.
Australians providing engineering equipment, concrete
mixers and state of the art refrigeration technologies
and storage containers.
Australians exporting medical products for sleep
disorders, and training videos for occupational health.
Australians exporting high tech scientific equipment and
specialised resource mapping services.
Australians exporting gas cylinders and steel.
Australians exporting magnesia, salt, iron ore, oil and
gas. Ladies and gentlemen
Australia is a global trader. We are dependent on an
open, liberal trading environment.
Australia's overriding foreign economic policy priority
is to preserve and enffa_ 6iig a tradinig-environment in which
our major markets become more open to us and to each
other. T2EUL:. NOV.% i2 1(; 11 NO. uzu r. uziu(
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For our part, the Government is always on the look-out
for ways of se curing better conditions for our trade., in
whatever context, be it Multilateral, regiona~ l or
bilateral. The Government today, and everyday, is working to see the
global trading rules improved, market distortions removed
and our access to markets enhanced.
In a changing economic world, Australia needs to be open
minded about the institutional forums and the
arrangements we might enter to secure these objectives.
We do not rule out bilateral trading agreements or
membership of regional trading arrangements as means of
achieving our goals in trade.
Nor do we wish to pursue agreements which are prejudicial
to our interests.
The Trade investment Framework Arrangement which we are
now concluding with the United States is an initiative
which arose during the visit of President Bush in
Jatnuary. it is an example of our willingness to enter into
understandings which suit our interests, and which fit
well with the development of the region's trade patterns.
The arrangement will provide Australia with a valuable
opportunity to hold high-level consultations on issues
such as subsidies, quotas and non tariff barriers which
effect some of our exports to the United States, such as
beef, sugar and steel.
our overall interests are clear. A strong liberal global
trading system based on the GATT and a successful Uruguay.
_ Round outcome will mean a un isal liberalisation of
markets. A Pacific-wide trading area, with its most powerful
economies building closer trade and investment bonds,
helps ensure individual markets are fired by the vigour
of prosperity and open trade.
And the facts around these interests are clear.
Australia's overall trade performance and our ability to
negotiate better access for our exports depend
substantially on the competitiveness and performance of
the national economy.
A decade ago our cost structure made it hard for
exporters to compete.
Today we have increased our competitiveness
substantially, and entrenched our competitive advantages
with low inflation and higher productivity growth.
TELU: . Nov. 2JZ 1(; 11 NO. UZU r. uO,/ Va'
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More importantly, we have encouraged a wholesale shift
into enterprise bargaininM as the principal means of
deciding wages, and pushed forward 8 program of industry
reform which has dramatically increased the prodtuctivity
of ofr ports, and changed the f ace of our aviation and
telecommunications industries.
These industries are, of course, vital to exporting.
No one should be under any illusions about these reforms
both their strengths and their present limitations.
They are overdue. There is, no doubt, still some way to
go: just as there is still a way to go in developing a
thoroughgoing export culture in Australia meaning an
awareness at every level of the community, that it is
fromn what we do and what we make that success will
spring. But that awareness baa grown dramatically, and so has the
pace of real reform in recent years. Without doubt, it
has been much greater than anyone expected.
Take the key issue of industrial relations: we expect
that by next year abd-ut half the Au btiraian work force
will be working under enterprise agreements.
From any perspective, that is phenomenally rapid change,
and it is happening for the fundamental reason that we
had a cultural change, a change in outlook, in the
previous five or six years.
it was the change in attitude which underpins the
concrete results we're now seeing.
And, truly, there can be no sense in ripping the heart
out of reform and with it, in large part, recovery by
smashing the cooperative ethic which has been fashioned.
why declare war when the peace is working?
And when the only possible victory would leave us
infinitely worse of f?
Why go around the country saying, as the Victorian
Premier did yesterday, Have Courage! Have couragel
when patently, by their actions, Australians do have
courage: and, more than that, common sense, imagination,
public spirit, the ability to work together.
The point is we have made extraordinary progress in the
past decade, and the changes will breed more change. To
reverse the progress will be to halt the change, and
nothing could iever persuade me of the sense in doing
that. Ladies and gentlemen 72EUL:. NOV. 232 1(: l NO. VZU rAJ' 4' u
TEL:
Australian companies will benefit from the major
investments we have made in infrastructure in aviation,
road and rail; in the doubling of productivity on our
wharves, in reduced shipping costs, reduced
telecommunications costs and improved services, and so
In our One Nation statement we also made changes to our
business taxation system which make it one of the most
competitive among industrial countries.
The important poir& to be made is that these reforms build
on progress.
There has been a transformation of our trade a
transformation in volumes, composition and destination.
Exports of goods and services as a proportion of our
national product have risen from less than 14 per cent
ten years ago to 23 per cent today.
A decade ago we exported less than one sixth of our
production. As the sheer volume of our exports has increased, their
composition and direction have changed.
The value of both our services exports and manufactured
exports have tripled over the last decade.
Manufactures and services together accounted for 34 per
cent of our exports in 1982. Last year they accounted
for 40 per cent.
In the 1990s Australians are succeeding in tourism in
ways unimaginable a decade ago.
in 1982 950,000 tourists visited Australia. Last year
nearly 2.4 millfifn ~ aiiived an average growth rate of
more than 10.6 per cent, and yielding an increase in
foreign exchange earnings of $ 6.3 billion dollars from
$ 1.9 billion in 1982 to 88.2 billion last year.
The forecast number of visitors in the year 2000 ranges
between 4.8 million and 6.5 million.
There is no better or more obvious example of our
individual and collective capacity to adapt, to develop
skills and infrastructure, to exploit our natural
advantages and add value, or to seize an opportunity in a
competitive international market than the success of the
tourism industry.
it now represents 12 per cerit of our total exports up
from 7 per cent in 1982/ 83: and tourist operators, like
all exporters, will continue to receive encouragement and
support from this Government. TZEUL:. rwV.' JZ rNU. UZU r'. UDIV(
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In the last decade or so the Asian region has been
transformed into the most rapidly growing regional
economy in the world, with a high share of exports, and a
high degree of trade within the region.
our economy is increasingly integrated into the region.
Nine out of ten of our largest export markets are now in
Asia and the Pacific.
Last year about 60 per cent of our exports went to East
Asia. The Government is providing strategic support for a
number of key export-oriented sectors, at the same time
progressively lowering the tariff walls in order to
assist restructuring and enhance competitiveness.
Many of the companies here tonight have worked in
partnership with the Government in specific areas for
instance through the International Trade Enhancement
Scheme, the Asia-Pacific Fellowships Scheme, or Austrade
industry special-s-ts refll __ iig _ a _ joint long term
commitment to exporting.
We have shown we can change and adapt.
We have shown we can work together. We have demonstrated
our versatility in many fields of endeavour. We have
shown that we can succeed.
But each of us here tonight knows that to get here has
not been easy it requires sustained application over
the long haul and we still have much to do.
The Government for its part will continue to encourage
more Australian companies to export.
As well as the changes at home, we have been spreading
the message abroad of the " new" Australia. I have made
this a central theme or my visits this year to Indonesia,
Japan and Singapore.
in the last two years, the Government has opened a number
of new posts in the increasingly affluent Asian region.
Ladies and gentlemen, the success of the companies
represented here tonight is an inspiration and example to
others. They need only look to your success for
confirmation that the labour is worthwhile.
Your imagination, determination, skills and effort
constitute a profound contribution to the great national
endeavour in the 1990s. T2EL0:. Nov. 92 17: 11 No. 020 P. Ub/ r'
IEL: ZU. NOv. z 1 r. 11 NIu. VUV r . Vu u
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The effort to make Australia a vigorous trading nation
and a prosperous society which can deliver employment
opportunities to all.
Your success is a material contribution to that process,
and a psychological one. Because success raises
Australians' hope, competitive success in the world
raises Australians' self-esteem.
It raises confidence and we will need that in the coming
years, as much as anything else.
So I thank you all, and congratulate you.