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Thank you very much Wil. To Michael Osborne, the
President of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party,
to my Federal Ministerial colleagues of which there are a number
here tonight; Richard Alston, John Moore, Judi Moylan, Bronwyn Bishop,
John Herron - I don't think I have missed any of the Ministers.
If I have, put your hand up. To my Federal Parliamentary colleagues
other than Ministers, to Peter Collins and other state parliamentarians,
Ian Armstrong, the Leader of the National Party in New South Wales,
ladies and gentlemen.
Can I start by thanking all of you for being here
tonight and to thank so many of you for the tremendous support that
you have given to the Liberal Party in Sydney and New South Wales
and therefore throughout Australia over the last couple of years.
It is a tremendous sense of satisfaction that I have in marking
the second anniversary here in Sydney of the election of the first
Coalition Government in Australia for 13 years and I take the opportunity
through this gathering tonight to thank all the members and supporters
of the Liberal Party for the tremendous help that they have given
to me and the tremendous understanding they have displayed and the
loyalty they have demonstrated over the last couple of years.
I came into the Prime Ministership and my Government
came into office with a number of quite basic guiding principles.
I have always had a strong personal philosophy about the quality
of government in this country that essentially says that the art
of good statecraft as we come towards the end of this century and
we approach the third Christian millennium, the art of good statecraft
is really to strike a balance between preserving those values of
our past and those values of our culture and our history that continue
to serve us well and continue to remain relevant for our future,
and to be willing to defend those values and those cultures with
great tenacity. But by the same token, to be ready to challenge
and to change, fundamentally if necessary, those practices and those
attitudes that really have no place in the future Australia that
we want to build into the 21st Century.
And I also believe that what you have to do is
to strike a balance between those two. I have also brought to my
view of the Prime Ministership of this country a fundamental belief
that Australia occupies a quite unique intersection of history,
geography, culture and economic circumstance. We are the only nation
in the world that is geographically cast in Asia, has deep and enduring
links with Britain and the rest of Europe and also profound historical
and strategic ties with North America, particularly the United States.
So far from that intersection being a liability or an encumbrance,
it is of immense advantage to this country.
That has been demonstrated over the past few months
as our neighbours in Asia have passed into great economic turmoil
and Australia has been able to emerge from that as a nation fighting
above, hitting above and punching above its own weight and a nation
that is able to be a reliable friend and a good regional mate of
those countries in their difficulties. In the years ahead, when
those countries recover, as inevitably they will, they will remember
that it was Australia occupying that unique intersection, with all
of the influences that intersection can bring, that Australia was
amongst the countries that was willing to help and to give them
succour and comfort during their difficult times.
We do occupy that very special place in the world
and it's a source of immense pride to me that my Government
has been able to turn what was a, what I could only describe as
an Asia-only focus of the former government into an Asia-first focus
under my Government. Asia will forever be the most important area
of our operations, both politically, economically and strategically.
But as Wil said, we do have important and enduring economic, historical
and cultural links with other parts of the world.
We came to office with many things that we wanted
to do. We came to office believing that the social fundamentals
of this country were srong, that we had a stable political system
but there are aspects of our economic management that needed dramatic
change, and as I look back over the last two years, I do so with
some satisfaction but certainly no sense of complacency or smugness.
We have turned a deficit of $10.5 billion into a prospective surplus
in Peter Costello's third budget. We do have the lowest inflation
rate in the OECD. We do have a very strong level of business investment.
We have the lowest interest rate for 30 years and only this afternoon
as a result of the competitive pressures that are now within the
Australian financial system, some of them directly flowing from
the implementation of the recommendations of the Wallis Committee,
we have seen further reductions in business overdraft rates. And
we have seen over the last week through the actions of the Westpac
Bank, and this afternoon by the Commonwealth Bank, we have seen
the first real interest rate breakthrough that the small business
community of Australia has been hoping for and wanting for many
long years. That represents extraordinarily good news for what remains
the backbone of the Australian economy.
We have been able to reduce, even before the prospective
privatisation of the remaining part of Telstra, we have been able
to produce a situation that our debt to GDP ratio which was about
20 per cent in 1995 is now prospectively only 10 per cent in the
year 2000. By the one single decision to allow the men and women
of Australia to buy the remaining two thirds of Telstra, we will
be able, by that one single decision to eliminate almost 40 per
cent of the total Federal Government debt of this country that existed
when we came to office in March 1996.
So we have been able, in a quite fundamental way,
to give to the Australian economy, the strongest economic foundations
that it's had for 25 years. And I can, with some feeling, ask
the rhetorical question, where do you imagine the Australian economy
would have been? What do you imagine the impact of the Australian
economy would have been from the turmoil in Asia if we had been
running the loose fiscal policy that we inherited two years ago,
if we were still struggling with a deficit of over $10 billion a
year. It certainly would have left us weak, vulnerable and subject
to very severe economic buffeting. Instead of that, we are seen
as a stable, reliable, predictable country with which to do business
and in which to invest.
But we've also, very importantly, undertaken
some quite fundamental changes to Australia's industrial relations
system and I guess of all the causes with which I have been strongly
identified in my political time, on the economic front none has
been more important than the need to reform Australia's outdated
industrial relations system. Just as I believe that there are many
things about Australia that have been part of our past, that we
should fight with passion to defend as we go into the future, there
are some things about our past that we should fight to get rid of
because they are holding us back and one of those things is the
industrial relations system which has its origins back in pre-World
War One days, built on some rather unsound notions, coming out of
the decision of the old Arbitration Commission in the now almost
infamous Harvester Case.
And over the years, that award-driven system has
weakened Australia economically and one of the things we resolved
to do in 1996 was to change that forever. And at first some of the
changes we made were seen with suspicion, even by some of our friends
and supporters as perhaps not going far enough, as perhaps being
weaker than the would have liked.
But those critics were wrong and those suspicions
were misplaced because we have brought about fundamental change
in the industrial relations area and we have been able to do it
without industrial turmoil. We were told before the last election
that if we tried to do what we had in mind there would be industrial
strife. The reality has been completely the opposite. It may stagger
some of you to know that in 1997 Australia recorded the lowest number
of days lost to industrial disputes for 85 years. In other words,
we had to go back to World War One days to find such an impeccable
industrial record.
What we have done with those industrial relations
changes is to build a framework and a basis for one of the most
defining industrial challenges that this country has faced and that
of course is fundamental reform of the industrial relations of Australia's
waterfront.
We all know that Australia has an inefficient waterfront.
We all know that the unproductive practices of the waterfront, and
the activities of the Maritime Union of Australia and its predecessors,
are almost legend in the industrial relations folklore of Australia.
We all know that it's one of the things that stands between
Australia and the full realisation of her potential as a modern,
competitive, highly productive and highly successful nation. It's
one of those things that continues to deny us the full realisation
of the potential that the rest of the world has always seen in our
country. And at long last we have that intersection of circumstances.
We have a government which has had the courage to change the law
of this country, to break the monopoly of the Maritime Union on
the supply of labour. We have, in the National Farmers' Federation,
we have a very courageous organisation of men and women who are
seen as an integral part, not only of the history and the backbone
of this country but also of its export capacity and it's export
future. And we also see in the Patricks company and led by a person
who I think has conducted himself with great courage and great commitment,
Mr Chris Corrigan, we see a company, and we see in the National
Farmers' Federation together, people who are prepared to use
the tools provided by the changes to the law that my Government
has made.
Now this is a defining moment. It is a defining
dispute in the industrial relations history of Australia. We do
not seek an argument with any union in this country. We have no
enduring quarrels with any union. We do not wish to destroy unions,
we do not wish to destroy unionists and we do not wish to destroy
unionism. There is a place for both union and non-union labour on
the waterfront of Australia just as there is a place for union and
non -union labour on any factory floor and in any office in this
country.
It is a question of personal choice. Over a period
of time, union membership has declined and I guess that process
will go on. But that is a matter of individual choice. But what
we are determined to see changed because it is important for the
generation of jobs and the earning of export income for this country,
what we are determined to see changed are of course the practices
on the waterfront that have damaged this country's interests
over such a long period of time.
So it is an important dispute. It is a crucial
issue. It is one of those defining moments in the industrial relations
experience of any country and it will be important that those who
want the goals that we have talked about for so long in this area
to be achieved and realised over the months ahead. It will be important
that you continue to give us and those involved in these events
your wholehearted support because Australia's export income
future is at stake. The potential jobs of thousands of Australians
are involved and the economic reputation and the reliability of
this country as seen by the rest of the world is very much involved.
The other area, my friends, of course which is
extremely important to Australia's economic future is dealing
with what I regard to be the great piece of unfinished economic
reform business in Australia and that is the long-overdue reform
of our taxation system. By any measure, we have a very old fashioned,
increasingly unworkable, and in the eyes of many people, increasingly
unfair taxation system. We have tried, and I speak collectively
of us as a nation, we have tried to change it on a number of occasions
over the years. I had a go when I was the Treasurer in the Fraser
Government. Mr Keating had a go when he was the Treasurer in the
Hawke Government. He had the rug pulled from under his feet by the
ACTU and his Prime Minister. We courageously had a go under John
Hewson's leadership in 1993 and through one of the most, I
think, dishonest and destructive scare campaigns that I have ever
seen run in Australian politics, that attempt was defeated in the
1993 election.
We said in the 1996 election that we wouldn't
introduce this kind of reform during our first term and we have
remained true to our word. But I came to the conclusion in about
August of last year that it wasn't real life for me to go to
the next election and once again rule out taxation reform. You don't
get more than one go at being Prime Minister of this country and
none of us are either on this earth or in any of these positions
of immense responsibility for indefinite periods of time. And that
means that you've got to use the opportunities you have wisely.
You've got to be, I guess, a faithful steward to the responsibilities
that you have while you have them. And it seemed to me that when
it came to the issue of taxation reform, I really had two alternatives.
I could either sort of say look, it's all too hard, and fudge
it and pretend that nothing needed to be done or alternatively,
we would go to the next election full bloodedly committed to the
fundamental reform of the taxation system.
And that we'd lay out in some detail the plans
that we had in mind. Now there may be some of you and there may
be some of our supporters elsewhere who question the wisdom of it.
But I don't think I could have credibly got away with going
to the next election campaign, saying we're going to put tax
reform off for yet another three years. And I certainly wasn't
going to stand in front of cameras at the next election campaign
and say solemnly that of course we're not going to change the
tax system, having all the time an intention if I won that election
to do the exact opposite. I am not interested in that kind of duplicity.
So we have decided to reform the tax system. We
have decided to go to the next election with a detailed proposal.
I think there has been something of a mood change in the Australian
community about the need for tax reform. I believe that increasing
numbers of Australians believe our present system is outmoded, out
of date and is in need of root and branch reform. There is a growing
acceptance in the business community that reformed taxation in Australia
will particularly boost our export capacity. There is a realisation
that there is rorting of the present system at both ends and if
it is to be made more fair, fundamental changes are needed. But
whatever the arguments may be, we are committed and Peter Costello
and I, in particular are working very hard at present to put together
the details of a proposal which will be presented to the Australian
people in enough time for them to analyse and understand it and
digest it before the next election.
Now I don't underestimate for a moment the
difficulty of the task. I know that we will fight, we will face
a ferocious fear campaign from our Labor opponents, our Labor opponents
who have offered no policy alternatives, who seem to have a growing
capacity to muck rake and to make trivial personal attacks on individuals,
who this week were busy making personal attacks on people, from
myself down in the Government while my Government was busily getting
on with the job of providing good government for the people of Australia.
We will face a very strong fear campaign. I have
no doubt of that. But I also have a belief in the great maturity
and the commonsense of the Australian people. I think as we come
towards the end of this century, the expectations of the public
are of their politicians and of their leaders, that they will endeavour
to make an honest attempt and to have a go at fixing the fundamental
problems, not only of the economy but of the nation generally. And
I think we will earn respect and we will win support because we
are prepared to tackle those fundamental problems. I think Australians
want a different taxation system. I think they see the present one
as failing and as being unfair and I think they will give us marks
for tackling it. But I don't pretend it will be easy. We will
need your support, we will need your understanding and we will need
your advocacy in the weeks and months ahead.
Could I just say one or two other personal things
about the Liberal Party and about what it has meant to me and what
it continues to mean to me after my many years of membership and
the enormous privilege I now have, not only of being its Federal
Parliamentary Leader but also of being Prime Minister of Australia.
I have never forgotten my organisational roots in the Liberal Party.
I have never forgotten the long association that I have had with
so many people in this room, the long association I have had with
the Party organisation.
At the present time I am the fortunate beneficiary
of, I suppose a collection of loyalties and a collection of committed
people, the like of which has not been my experience before and
the like of which comes for few people as an experience in their
life and I am very conscious of that. And I am very grateful for
all of the support that you have given to me. And I am very grateful
that together, we have been able to achieve an enormous amount over
the last two years. And I remember that night two years ago on the
second of March when we had that wonderful win, and one of the greatest
senses of satisfaction that I had on that occasion was the realisation
that there were many people at the Wentworth Hotel that night who
had literally spent years and years with us, trying to win, and
time after time we kept losing. And we were told by our political
opponents that we didn't have a decent Party organisation.
We were told by our political opponents and by some of our critics
in the media, of which there were many, that we of course were never
going to win, that we weren't professionals and that we were
political no-hopers. And it was a source of tremendous pride and
satisfaction to me that together, we proved all of them wrong.
That is what an occasion like this reminds me of.
This is what an occasion like this enthuses me to say to all of
you, that we can win again and we can win well, provided we don't
take the Australian people for granted, provided we continue to
address those things that the Australian people want addressed.
They want their governments to do things, to deal with problems,
to tackle difficult issues, to have a go at reforming areas that
need reforming. They don't want a Government that sits there
and does nothing. They don't want a government that imagines
it can sit on a large majority and automatically be re-elected on
the assumption that they won't put back a government they threw
out or a party they threw out so unceremoniously only three years
earlier.
We do live in a more volatile political climate
than ever before. The differences between the parties are narrower.
We are less tribal, politically, than we used to be and the number
of swinging voters is much greater than used to be the case and
that puts an obligation all the time of good, innovative government
on those who happen to be in power. It means that you can never
rest on your laurels. You can never assume that having done a certain
amount is enough. It means that you have to, having conquered one
issue and dealt with one problem, that you have got to move very
rapidly onto the next. And that is the philosophy and that is the
approach that we have endeavoured to adopt and we will continue
to adopt between now and the next election.
Can I thank all of you personally again for what
you have done, for the support you have given us, and prospectively
for the support I hope you continue to give us into the future.
To you Michael, as President of the Patty in New South Wales and
to our new State Director, Remo Nogarotto, I thank both of you for
your commitment to the organisation. And there is one other person
I would like to thank tonight and that is somebody who has helped
and sustained me through all of my years in politics, and shared
the ups and downs and the trials and tribulations as well as some
of the more happy moments and that is my wife, Janette, who is with
me tonight. If I can say to you, we celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary
tomorrow and typically of course, not surprisingly, we are at a
Liberal Party gathering and it has certainly been characteristic
of our lives. Thanks a lot Janette, you have made it all possible.
Thanks a lot.