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Thank you very much, Trish. To you and to my Cabinet and Parliamentary
colleagues and all the other representatives and leaders of the local
Adelaide community. We are here today as part of a long standing practice
of the Government and that is to ensure that when Parliament is not
sitting our Cabinet meets around Australia and that we don't
only meet in Canberra and occasionally in Sydney or Melbourne and
this is not the first Cabinet meeting of this Government in Adelaide
and it certainly won't be the last.
But today is a very special day for all of us. Today is the third
anniversary of the election of the Government I'm very proud
to lead on the second of March in 1996. You'll forgive me for
saying that I thought that was a pretty intelligent decision by the
Australian people and you'll forgive me for saying that I was
even more impressed with their intelligence two years and eight months
later, or seven months later, when they re-elected us on the third
of October.
But I haven't come here to give a political speech. I want to
say something about the strengths of Australia at the present time.
And I want to say something about the strengths of the social coalition
that is so important to our future and is represented here today.
Economics is not everything, but it's very important to the capacity
of a country to look after the less fortunate and also the capacity
of a country to project itself to the rest of the world.
You all know that the Asian economies over the last two years have
suffered the most fearful battering that they have experienced for
more than a generation. And you all know that they have watched tens
of millions of their people being thrust into absolute poverty and
they have watched the hard won gains of twenty years disappear very
rapidly. And through that turmoil Australia has been able to survive
economically a lot stronger than many of our critics suggested. And
we've even surpassed the best and most optimistic predictions
of our own.
And I'm very proud to say as Prime Minister that over the last
three years we have done things that have made Australia stronger.
We have been able to get inflation and interest rates down, we've
been able to pay our way and get rid of our debts as a nation, our
budget deficit. But at the same time we've also been able to
institute some very important reforms and we're in the middle
of trying to get another very important reform through the Parliament
which the Australian public voted for in October of last year.
Now I mention the strength of our economy not because I am not aware
of the fact that there are still many within our community without
a job, there are still too many in our community without a home, there
is too many people, particularly young people who are addicted to
drugs and there is still much unhappiness and much distress within
our community.
But I mention our strengths because it is important we never lose
sight of the need to think in positive terms about Australia's
future. We have a tendency in this country to accentuate negatives
and to denigrate achievement rather than to draw a certain amount
of pride in what Australia has been able to do. And as we move towards
the centenary of the foundation of the Australian nation, the Centenary
of Federation, more and more Australians are going to draw upon the
things that bind us together and draw upon the success and the achievements
of our nation.
But we must in the process of doing that understand and respect that
there are still many in our community who are vulnerable and who are
weak and need our understanding and our help. They need it in a practical
and a compassionate way. But they also need it in a way that gathers
in the rest of the Australian community. And one of the goals that
I've set the Government in its second term is to build in a more
effective way what I choose to call a social coalition within our
community. The Government is a coalition, it's a coalition between
two political parties. And a coalition is something where two organisations
join together to achieve a common objective. And the social coalition
that I seek to build more effectively in the Australian community,
is one that brings together the Government, it brings together the
energy and the zeal and the commitment of individuals. And it brings
together the private and the welfare sector of our community.
None of us can achieve it on our own. The Government is incapable
and inadequate to the task of solving every social problem on its
own. It has neither the expertise or all of the resources or all of
the understanding to do that. It is equally true to say that individuals
on their own, whilst they can solve most problems, indeed many problems,
and the great bulk of them are very self sufficient, adequate people,
able to live their lives and to care for themselves and their loved
ones very effectively even they from time to time need help. They
can't solve things on their own.
And the great welfare sector of our community, so magnificently represented
here today by so many organisations, which does a marvellous job,
it can't solve all of our social and human problems on its own.
And what you need in the community is an effective social coalition.
You need the Government doing its bit. You need individuals making
their contribution, being self sufficient, accepting responsibility,
accepting that it is now increasingly part and parcel of our community
that there is a mutual obligation. Society should look after the less
fortunate and equally those who are able to give something back in
return for that support should be asked in an appropriate way to do
something for that support. And we also, of course, need to enlist
the aid of the welfare sector with their particular understanding
of the human implications of deprivation and vulnerability in our
community.
And in so many areas the Government is endeavouring to do it. We have
had a lot of debate recently about the issue of drugs in our society.
Can I say to you the Government acting alone can't solve that
problem whether it's the Federal Government or the State government
or all of us working together. We need the particular understanding
of many of the organisations represented here today who deal first
hand with the human misery that is involved in drug taking. We need
the understanding and the cooperation of the medical profession. We
need the goodwill and the cooperation of our police and it's
important whenever we are thinking of community problems to acknowledge
the very difficult role of our law enforcement agencies. They are
too often denigrated by unthinking people who want police when they
need help but are only too ready to blame them when they don't
feel particularly vulnerable or to need assistance. And what we must
do increasingly within our community is to build a more effective
social Coalition because we live in an age and a society where none
of us operating alone can achieve the goals that we want for our community.
There is an acceptance in Australian society that in order to build
an effective and harmonious community we need a strong economy. We
need strong businesses and we need an economic climate where people
are encouraged to make money and are properly rewarded when they are
successful. We need low inflation, we need low interest rates and
we need a climate of risk taking and a climate of entrepreneurialship
within our society. Because it is that climate and it is the product
of that attitude that gives us the wherewithal to provide the programmes
to assist the less fortunate within our community.
But all of us have an obligation to each other. The Government has
responsibilities to those who elect us, we have responsibilities as
individual Australians to our neighbours and as community organisations
we have obligations to help the less fortunate within our community.
But my message to you today is very much that this gathering represents
the ideal of the social coalition that we seek to build for a more
effective, a more prosperous and a more harmonious and more humane
Australian community. It brings together men and women in business.
It brings the leaders of the great welfare organisation, it brings
local government, it brings your magnificent local Federal Member,
who I will come back to in a moment, and it also brings together individuals
who have made their mark in so many different ways within the community.
And I am delighted that all of my Cabinet colleagues are with me today
and can I pay a particular...make a particular mention of Alexander
Downer, one of the Cabinet Ministers from here in Adelaide who over
the last week in particular has done an absolutely magnificent job
as Australia's Foreign Minister in dealing with a very difficult
and a very important issue of East Timor. An issue that is going to
consume the attention and the resources and the time of the Government
very significantly over the next few months.
So I want to thank all of you for coming here today, for giving me
the opportunity of saying a few words about why we are here, what
we want for Australia over the next three years reflecting for a moment
on some of the Government's achievements over the past three
years and projecting forward to some of the things that we hope to
achieve over the next three years.
This has all been made possible because you do have an extremely hardworking
and effective local Member in Trish Worth. I don't think it's
a particularly controversial political statement for me to say that
Adelaide is not the easiest seat for either side of politics to hold.
But it is a marginal seat and Trish has done an absolutely fantastic
job in winning it on three occasions. And she campaigned magnificently
and gave a great source of pride and satisfaction to all of us on
the night and, indeed, the days following the last election in October
of last year. But she is a quintessential local Member who is in touch
with her community who knows them all, who understands what they are
concerned about, has an instinctive feel for human problems and somebody
who brings a quality of representation which I think impresses both
sides of politics.
And there are men and women in Parliament from all political shades
who demonstrate that great capacity and she is one of them. I congratulate
her for that, I thank her for organising today's luncheon and
can I say on behalf of all of my Cabinet colleagues who are here in
Adelaide today, thanks for having us and thank you all for the contribution
that you are making to building a better Australian community.
Thank you.
[ends]