Subjects: Economy, Youth unemployment rate, further sale of Telstra,
Tasmania's debt - Hydro policy, RFA - Labor Party Amendment.
E&OE................
Well thank you very much Shane for that very warm introduction. To you Jim,
to Sue Napier, to Tony Rundle, Ray Green, Jocelyn Newman and my other Federal
colleagues , my State Parliamentary colleagues and former colleagues, ladies
and gentlemen. As always it is a great delight to be back in Tasmania. I've
addressed in my capacities over the years as Federal Leader of the parliamentary
Liberal Party, mark one phase and then mark two phase, I've addressed many
State Council gatherings in Tasmania. I think I've addressed the pre-council
dinner probably on six or seven occasions at least. I think it can fairly
be said that speaking from a national perspective I don't think I've addressed
a gathering like this in Tasmania at a time when our Federal and National
standing has been stronger and better and more successful than it is at
the present time.
As I am able to report to you, as I will at the State Council tomorrow,
the ship of State nationally is going extremely well. The Australian economy
now is the best it's been for more than three decades. We now have the lowest
level of employment nationally than for more than ten years. There has been
5.8 percentage point reduction in the number of young people unemployed
in the three and a quarter years that we've been in office. In fact there
are fewer young Australians looking for full time work than at any time
since statistics on that particular activity began to be measured in the
1970s. We saw yesterday figures demonstrating that nationally we have the
lowest level of long-term unemployed in this country since 1991. We have
created almost 500,000 new jobs in Australia in the last three and a quarter
years. We've turned a budget deficit of $10.5 billion into a strong surplus.
We have the lowest interest rates, the lowest rate of inflation and the
strongest sustained levels of business investment for more than 30 years.
Our national debt to GDP ratio is healthily lower than what it was in the
1980s and is one of the best in the OECD area.
Coming down on the plane from Sydney I read with enormous pride a lengthy
article in the latest edition of Fortune magazine read by all of those who
make major economic decisions not only in the United States but around the
world which talked about the strengths and confidence of the Australian
economy.
I've just come back from a visit to the United States which included a visit
to the financial capital of the world, New York, and in the 20 or more years
that I've been visiting that city in different capacities I have never encountered
such a universally positive view about Australia. We are seen with a new
respect and a new reverence for what we have been able to achieve, especially
over the last three years. And the fact that we've been able to stare down
the Asian economic downturn has given to this country a greater sense of
self-belief and self-confidence and national pride at our capacity to achieve
things than at any time that I've been in public life.
So I am very happily able to report to you that nationally we are steering
a very steady course and we go into the next century at the end of this
year with the underlying strengths of the Australian economy and a sense
of national wellbeing that like of which I have not experienced in the 25
years that I have been in Parliament.
Now that has not been achieved by accident. It's not been achieved by just
good luck. You make your own luck in politics as you do in life. It has
been achieved because when we come into office we set ourselves some goals
and we stuck to achieving those goals. It's also been achieved because there
were one or two intelligent reforms undertaken by the former government
and I've never been reluctant to give the former government credit for one
or two of the significant reforms and I think particularly of the moves
towards a freer financial system and the changes that were made in tariff
policy in the early 1990s which I think contributed very significantly to
a stronger Australian economy.
But the major reforms we have undertaken over the last three and a quarter
years have contributed the lion's share of the strengthening of the Australian
economy and it's been achieved by all of us working together. And I would
take this opportunity at this dinner as I always do to express my immense
gratitude to the rank and file members of the Liberal party for sticking
with us. You can't win elections without party members and what I have achieved
in politics and what my parliamentary colleagues have achieved in politics
has been overwhelming due to your efforts. And you stuck by us when we were
out of office federally and at a state level. Things are pretty good federally.
I know you are going through a less happy time at a state level and I'll
come to the state scene in a moment. But there are times when we were out
of office just about everywhere. And people were writing the party off and
they were saying it was finished. And they were really talking about a new
political order that didn't really have the Liberal Party featuring very
strongly. But there were many people in this room who stuck by us and you
all, and we all lived, to fight another day and we all lived ultimately
to win in March of 1996.
So this is an occasion for me as the fortunate beneficiary at a Federal
level of that sustained loyalty and help over so many years to extend my
grateful thanks to the people of the Tasmanian Liberal Party who've helped
us so much and have been the life-blood of our support through all of the
difficult years as well as through some of the better years. But as I survey
the national scene I recognise that it's uneven.
I was saying to Margot Gatenby a few moments ago that very recently I attended
a dinner for two of my Federal colleagues in Sydney. The dinner was held
at Sylvania Waters - a famous family didn't turn up! We'd have taken their
donation! It was a very large and enthusiastic dinner. About 600 people
at it. And in the course of it one of the members, Bruce Baird, said that
the unemployment rate in the Sutherland shire of Sydney, which covered the
two seats involved was only 2.3 percent and there are many parts of Australia
where unemployment has gone to very low levels or virtually disappeared.
But I also know that there are many areas of Australia where that is not
the case and I know that Tasmania still continues to have much higher levels
of unemployment than many other parts of Australia although there has been
a significant improvement all over the country. But there is still particular
challenges faced by your island state which are not faced by other parts
of the country and we at a federal level have always been conscious of that
and that is why historically we've been associated with such job injecting
schemes as the freight equalization program and we've presided over what
I think I could confidently and modestly describe as a sensitive division
of the proceeds of the sale of Telstra to ensure that Tasmania gets a fair
share.
I've got to say that John Olsen and Richard Court don't use the word sensitive.
And from time to time they take me to account over that but I make absolutely
no apology at all to anybody, anywhere in Australia for what my government
has done in relation to the Natural Heritage Trust to help the people of
Tasmania. No apology at all. I defend the decision to spend every last dollar.
And I also take the opportunity as all of us must as Liberals, to remind
the Premier of this State that when he announces programs that have been
funded by federal money he might at least have the honesty and the decency
to acknowledge the source of the funds.
Now that of course brings me to say something else about the question of
state and federal responsibilities. One of the great things that we've been
able to do at a federal level is that we've been able to reduce our accumulated
federal government debt.
When we came to power the accumulated federal government debt of this country
was in the order of $85-$90 billion. That is the money that had been racked
up through successive deficits by the federal government and there had been
a very big increase in that amount over the last few years that the federal
Labor government had been in office.
And I can report to you tonight that if we are able to sell the remaining
50.1 per cent of the government's ownership, the government's shares in
Telstra we will by the year 2002-2003 be able to totally eliminate net commonwealth
government debt in this country.
And one of the reasons why we have lower interest rates in this country
is that we no longer have the federal government voraciously competing in
the financial markets with private companies for the loanable funds within
our financial system. It is no accident that we have lower interest rates.
It's partly due to the fact that we have lower inflation and we have rising
labour productivity which moderates wage claims, but one of the other reasons
is that the Federal Government is not soaking up as much money as it once
used to and that is taking pressure off interest rates. And if you go from
the Federal level and go around the states, you see the same pattern. Victoria
has dug itself out of a huge economic hole. It has returned prosperity to
that state and pride to the city of Melbourne in particular under Jeff Kennett's
leadership because they have tackled the debt problem of that State.
I was in South Australia recently, and I spent a lot of time talking to
the business community of Adelaide and to the business community of that
State and I found there a sense of hope and confidence and optimism I haven't
found for a long time. And I lost count of the number of business men and
women who said to me that the reason why people were so much more confident
was that they thought national economic management was strong and effective,
and the national economic climate was good, but they also felt that because
the South Australian Government had finally been able to get the long-term
leasing of ETSA, the South Australian Electricity Authority, through the
State Parliament, the State now had a prospect of eliminating its debt and
joining the other relatively debt free States and the Commonwealth in a
far more optimistic debt free future.
Now, all of that, ladies and gentlemen, inevitably leads me, as you might
expect it does, to say something about the overwhelming need for the State
of Tasmania to do something about the chronic debt problem of this State.
Tony Rundle was absolutely right. Tony Rundle was speaking for the future
of Tasmania with the policy on the hydro that he took to the last election.
I know it may be unpopular with some Tasmanians for me to say it but I'm
going to say it nonetheless, that until this State tackles its long-term
debt problem and does something about it through the long-term leasing or
sale or whatever arrangements in relation to the hydro it is going to continue
to languish and it going to continue to be seen by the rest of Australia
as essentially responsible for its own problems. And the more that other
States are willing to do the things that are necessary to fix the problem
in their own States the less sympathy there will be for the plight of Tasmanians.
Now, I say that as a friend. I say that as somebody who's come to this State
in different capacities every year of the 25 years that I've been in Parliament.
And I say it as somebody who frequently says in other parts of Australia
that there are special needs and special problems in Tasmania which need
to be understood and need to be addressed. But you cannot forever ignore
the fact that the debt of this State as a share of gross State product is
more than four times the average of all of the Australian States. And that
until that is tackled, and we all know the only way in which it can be tackled,
until that is tackled, is going to remain an albatross around the neck of
this State. And I say it with the greatest of goodwill and the greatest
of sincerity, it does need to be tackled.
And, in a sense, the developments over the last year where quite a lot of
additional funds have begun to flow under the various schemes that I mentioned
into Tasmania, and as I say, all of those decisions are utterly justifiable
and necessary and appropriate but, in a sense, that is being used as a bit
of an excuse, as a bit of a smokescreen by the current Tasmanian Government
to give the impression that the debt problem is no longer with you. It is.
The debt problem will always be with Tasmania until something is done about
it. It won't disappear overnight. And just as we had to do something about
our debt problem, and it wasn't as great in relative terms, bad though it
was, and we are now enjoying the benefit of having done something about
it, so it is with the State of Tasmania.
Can I say but two other things to you. One of those relates to the forest
industry in this State. You all know as Tasmanians how important both the
economics and the politics of forestry in this State have been over the
years. You will be aware of the Regional Forest Agreement that Tony Rundle
and I negotiated not so long ago. And it brought an unparalleled balance,
I think, into proper concern for environmental values but also a lot of
additional investment in the industry in various parts of Tasmania. And
it's already led to the creation of several hundred new jobs. And it was
seen by the industry as providing 20 years of long-term security. And for
the first time every, at a Federal level, I insisted that Federal guarantees
be given in respect of any capricious breach of contract and removal and
withdrawal of resource security. And I did that because I thought it was
a fair request and I also did it in the face of some institutional objections
to the very notion that the national government should, in fact, guarantee
that if people made an investment in an industry they could confidently
expect that the conditions under which the investment were made would be
honoured in the long-term by the governments of Australia. I thought that
was a pretty reasonable request by industry. And what the forest industry,
the timber industry of this State has had to put up with over the years
with capricious withdrawals of consents and approvals by federal governments
in particular, has been, I think, quite unreasonable. And that agreement
was a very good agreement. And it was an agreement that was widely acclaimed
by the trade union movement not only in Tasmania but around Australia, by
the timber industry and it was also recognised by all but the most radical
environmentalists as being also a very good deal for the environment. And
I have to tell you that a Labor Party amendment to the Regional Forest Legislation
in the Senate could cast, if it were carried - and I can assure you it won't
be carried with the support of any Coalition Senators - and, of course,
it won't be carried in the House of Representatives, but if it were carried
it would undermine the agreement that Tony and I signed. Because what the
amendment proposes is that you draw a distinction between Regional Forest
Agreement signed before and after a particular date. And the design of that,
of course, is to ensure that the Tasmanian agreement is not affected by
the amendment. But the problem is there's another part of the amendment
that says that all Regional Forest Agreements have got to comply with the
objects of the Act which are to be inserted by the amendments. It's pretty
ridiculous to put forward the proposition that a Regional Forest Agreement
signed more than a year ago ought to comply with the objects of an Act that
are going to be inserted in the Act in a few weeks time. You only have to
state that to see how ridiculous it is. And on top of that, I've been advised
by the crime law authorities in Canberra that the amendment, in any event,
is unconstitutional because it's in breach of section 99 of the Constitution
which says that you can't, in effect, at a Federal level, discriminate between
the States or between different parts of the States. One of the cornerstone
principles of the Federal compact made almost 100 years ago.
Now, I mention the detail of that to illustrate the nonsense that is going
on still at a Federal Labor level on the issue of resource security. And
I think it's something that the trade union movement in this State ought
to be outraged about and it is something that the State Labor government
ought to be put on the rack about because it is their mates in Canberra
who are playing fast and loose if they got their own way with the agreement
that was signed by Tony and myself. Now, I want to assure you and assure
all Tasmanians that there is no way that that lunatic amendment can get
up because we're not going to support it. And even if they got the majority
in the Senate there's no way it could go through the House of Representatives.
But it is a matter of concern to me that the Labor Party has still not passed
the Regional Forest Legislation. And we'll all be pushing very hard to get
it through in the form in which it is presented.
I mention that, my friend, because that issue is very important to Tasmania.
And I'm very proud of the agreement that I negotiated with Tony Rundle.
It was very balanced and it's provided a lot of long-term security. But
the Labor Party, at a Federal level, is now run by people who are utterly
indifferent to a balanced industry outcome. And they don't seem to care
at all about how hard it is for blue collar workers to get jobs in regional
areas of Australia. And if you capriciously close down a forest industry
and you throw men and women out of work as a result it's very difficult
indeed for those people to find jobs in alternative employment. And it's
very interesting that the people who are taking up the cudgels more and
more for the blue collar workers of regional areas of Australia are, in
fact, Liberals and National Party members. And Wilson Tuckey, my Minister
for Forests, is doing a great job taking up the cudgels for the timber workers,
not only here but I might say also in other parts of Australia.
The final thing I want to say to you is very much about the future of our
party and the future of our country. We are about to end this century. We're
about to enter a new millennium. And we enter that new millennium with a
sense of optimism and national self confidence which is greater than I have
ever experienced. We are in a special place, not only in the world but we're
also in a special place and moment as far as our history is concerned. We
are a country that has very deep roots with Europe. We are a projection
of western civilisation in many ways in this part of the world. But we've
had a long political association with the United States and we share many
values in common with that country. But here we are, though, in the Asian
Pacific region and we have hundreds of thousands of Australians of Asian
descent now making a terrific contribution to the building of our community.
And we occupy a very special intersection of history and geography and culture.
We're the only country in the world that has got that combination and it
gives us a capacity to do things and achieve things in our region and around
the world that we haven't been able to do before.
You can carry authority in the world if you've got a strong economy. It's
no good lecturing people if things are a mess at home. And people will listen
to you with a new respect and a new regard and a new ore if you lead a country
that has been successful. And we have been successful in a way that few
societies this century have been. We've got a strong economy. We're a tolerant
nation. We've been continuously democratic for the entire century. And,
therefore, as the person who has the immense privilege of being the Prime
Minister of our country as we come towards the end of this century, I have
to say that we have achieved an enormous amount. And our great responsibility
is to build on that as we go into the next millennium and to give to our
children in that next millennium the sort of foundations that I know all
of us would want to do. It's a great time to be a Liberal in Australia.
It's a great time to be part of a very significant and very proud chapter
in the history of our country. Thank you.
[Ends]