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Thank you very much Mr Mayor for those very kind words of welcome. To
my colleagues Don Page and Larry Anthony, to all the other councilors
and very importantly the representatives of the Ballina community.
I have a connection with Ballina. The brother and sister-in-law of my,
I don't say oldest friend, but my longest standing friend, John and
Sally Lowry. John's brother Peter and I were I suppose you'd
call us best mates at Canterbury Boys High School, more than 43 years
ago, I left school in 1956, and John and Sally settled in Ballina a lot
of years ago and they were always kind enough to turn up whenever I come
to these parts and it's nice to see them again today. And when I
think of Ballina I think of that connection that goes back a very long
way.
But it's typical I suppose of a community like this that it brings
together different strands of Australian society and the Australian people.
It brings together people that have lived in this community long before
it became a lot more attractive to people in other parts of Australia.
There are a lot of people who live in communities like Ballina who have
a very strong and genuine commitment to environmental concerns. I've
met in the short time I've been here the students of a significant
cross section of both government and independent schools offering the
parents of this district a choice in the education of their children.
I was very pleased to hear the representative of the local Anglican school
acknowledge the contribution that the government's new schools policy
had made to the expansion of choice when it comes to the education of
our young.
I've had the opportunity of talking about the social challenges
with the representative of Lifeline. That great organisation started more
than 40 years ago in Australia in Sydney by the then Reverend Allan Walker
and it spread all around the world as a unique way of providing access
to people who feel in the depths of despair and are in need of assistance
in handling their particular personal and emotional problems. And the
value to me of a gathering like this is I guess encapsulated by what I've
just said over the last five minutes or so. It reminds me of this marvelous
collection of people doing good things by their fellow men and women which
is the hallmark of Australian society.
A lot of things are said about Australia. People often remark about our
love of sport and that's accurate because we love it, and I'm
no exception to the rule. People talk about our sense of mateship and
that's accurate too. People talk about the fact that we're an
open society. We respect people according to their worth not according
to their class or according to their background or their ethnic origin.
There's another characteristic of Australian society that's
very important and that is the characteristic of the volunteer spirit.
We are one of the great volunteer societies in the world. We are a society
which gets things done with the assistance of volunteers in a way in which
few other societies are able to accomplish. And some of the best of the
Australian spirit comes out when as a community we come together to respond
to natural challenges and to respond to community needs. And I've
been reminded as I have moved amongst you today of just how important
the volunteer spirit is to the Australian psyche and the Australian sense
of being.
As you know in the past few days I've been moving around the bush,
rural and regional Australia, learning more about some of the opportunities
as well as some of the problems. And I had the pleasure just a few, I
guess an hour-and-a-half ago to open a new credit union, a new Summerland
Credit Union office not far from here and that will bring new services
to this particular part of Australia. And I know how important community
services provided either by governments, by the private sector, or by
a combination of the two, how important those services are to people who
live outside the metropolitan area. Life is different when you get out
of the big smoke. In some respects it's better, in other respects
it represents a challenge and it's important when we look at the
comparisons of the city and the country, or the city and the coastal regions,
we understand that there are plusses and minuses and I'm very mindful
of the fact that people in the regional areas of Australia have a right
to access basic services with the same speed and according to the same
principles of affordability as people who live in the metropolitan areas
of Australia, particularly in the very large cities. And of course your
local member, Larry Anthony, who's now the Minister for Community
Services as well as being the Member for Richmond, has a special role
in responding to the concerns and interests of people in the community
sector.
I've spoken a lot over the last year, indeed over the last two
or three years of the concept I have of a social coalition. What that
concepts really says is that if you want to provide the best solutions
and the best responses to some of our community problems you need to get
the government, the local volunteer sector, the business community, and
public spirited individuals all working together, each contributing what
they can do best towards solving a problem. The government has of course
a fundamental role to finance a social security safety net in our society.
When I talk about this social coalition I don't talk about any concept
of the government reducing its support. I see the government continuing
its support. But I see that support being continued in harness with the
expertise and the goodwill the resources of the community sector.
And in the time that I've been Prime Minister I have tried to involve
many of the great social organisations, welfare organisations of Australia
not just in providing as they can do better than anything else
help and advice, and moral and where necessary spiritual support to people
who need it - but also I've tried to involve them in policy making.
And it's been no accident that I've had a Salvation Army captain
from Melbourne David Eldridge chair my Youth Homelessness
Task Force which has given the government some new insights into stopping
families falling apart in the first place before the young person becomes
homeless. And when it's happened in the early stages if it's
possible to do so, putting the young people back in contact with their
parents. It's much better to have policies that prevent families
falling apart in the beginning and it's also less expensive to the
community, than it is to say well we'll sit by idly, let it happen,
when it's happened we'll provide independent income support.
Now in some cases it's never possible to put things back together
again. We don't live in a utopia, we don't live in an ideal
world. Families and relationships do break up and fall apart and there's
a tragically high incidence of it in the Australia of today. And one of
the reasons why our social welfare demands continue to rise is the simple
fact that more and more families break up or more relationships break
up and more and more is the case that we have sole parent families. And
they do a magnificent job and the fact that we lament that there's
a growing number of them is certainly no criticism of the way in which
many parents, overwhelmingly but certainly not entirely women, soldier
on and look after their children in very difficult circumstances. But
we ought to have policies that keep families together as far as it's
humanly possible to do so. So the digression from what I was saying was
to make that point that the best youth homeless policies are those that
try and stop the youth being homeless in the first instance.
I've also involved people from the welfare sector in relation to
drugs policy. I know that's often an issue of debate in this part
of the world. I know that some of the views that I express on that are
criticised by those who think that there is a different way than arguing
the cause of total rehabilitation and total rejection of drugs. I happen
to believe very strongly that the best way to tackle the drug problem
is to have an increased commitment in three areas. You need to increase
your commitment as a community to law enforcement. And can I take the
opportunity of congratulating the Australian Federal Police and the Australian
Customs Service working in cooperation with the New South Wales Police
for the very significant seizure of cocaine which took place yesterday.
I make no comment for obvious legal reasons on the liability or otherwise
of those who've been arrested. But the fact that a major seizure
of that kind has taken place along with many other major seizures does
indicate that whilst you can never claim any kind of victory in law enforcement
in relation to drugs, we are doing well and the Federal Police and the
Customs Service and the New South Wales Police deserve our thanks as they
always do because of the important community service that they provide.
The second area where we need to act in relation to drugs is of course
education. We need to adopt an uncompromising attitude towards the use
of drugs in schools. And I support and applaud both government and non-government
schools that have a no drugs in our school policy and are prepared to
enforce that policy against people who break it. And I think State education
departments and State education ministers and indeed others charged with
responsibility of schools ought to give full faith and affect to those
sort of policies.
And finally we need more services to help people who want to break the
drug habit. One of the things that we've done recently is to put
a lot more money from a federal level, and I'm pleased to say it's
largely being matched although not completely as yet by the States, to
what I call a diversion program. And this put simply says to somebody
who's caught with a minor drug offence, you simply say to that person
you've got a choice you can take your chances with the criminal
justice system and perhaps at some time if your drug offences and the
consequences of that continue end up in gaol, or you can agree to undertake
a program of treatment to break your drug habit. In other words we divert
people from the criminal justice system into treatment and rehabilitation.
And this is being trialed in different ways in some of the States. The
New South Wales government has trialed it in relation to the drug courts,
and other governments are showing increased interest in it. Now I don't
pretend for a moment that the problem isn't other than a huge challenge.
I have to say that I am unconvinced that heroin trials or safe injecting
rooms offers a realistic alternative to the policies that are being followed.
I acknowledge that there are some, perhaps a significant number in the
community who don't agree with me. We'll continue to have the
debate. I'll continue to argue why I think they are not proper alternatives,
and no doubt those who disagree with me will continue to put the other
point of view. But it would be a great pity if the focus by the media
and other commentators on those parts of the drug challenge, it would
be a great pity if they gave the impression that that is really the only
thing that has ever been looked at in relation to drugs. As to most of
the campaign against drugs, can I tell you there's about a 90% to
95% agreement across Australia between the federal government, the State
government, Labor, Liberal and National Party. It's an issue that
ought to transcend political differences and there's an enormous
amount of cooperation and that cooperation extends into the areas of law
enforcement.
So ladies and gentlemen, I've chosen to say a few things about
those social and community issues today to you because I think they are
important. Of course the economic wellbeing of the community is tremendously
important as well. But a total national health audit if I can put it that
way, includes not only economic issues but also social and human issues
and each reinforces the other. And the responsibility of a government
is to try and get the balance right. We pride ourselves on our achievements
in strengthening the Australian economy and it is stronger and better
and more robust and more competitive than it was four years ago. We have
fewer people out of work, we have lower interest rates, we have lower
inflation, we created something like 580,000 new jobs, we have strong
economic growth, we stared down the Asian economic downturn.. That doesn't
mean to say that everybody's getting a reasonable share. Some aren't.
I understand that. And when the country's doing well over all the
people who are missing out feel it all the more keenly. And one of the
roles of the government as far as it can, and there's a limit to
what the government can do, we've got to try and ensure that the
national economic cake is at least freely available to everybody even
though some will work harder than others to get their share of it.
But today is very much a community gathering and it's an opportunity
for me on behalf I guess of the country to thank the people who work in
a volunteer way in the community, to make life more bearable and more
enjoyable and more comfortable for those less fortunate. I want to particularly
thank the police and the fire services and the other emergency services
for the contribution that they make. It's not easy work. It's
often filled with trauma and a great deal of stress. And it's very
important that the contribution of the police and other services be very
very freely acknowledged.
But over all it's a great experience for me as Prime Minister to
travel around our country. Over the past week I've been to Port Lincoln,
to Quorn in rural South Australia, to Bourke, to Nyngan, to Dubbo, last
night in the Tweed, here in Ballina, going onto Lismore tonight and so
it goes on. And I've learnt a lot. I've had some views reinforced.
I've had some different perspectives placed on things. I've
learnt the value of tackling problems in a community way rather than negotiating
an outcome between the various interests groups. But I'm delighted
to say that at every single gathering I've gone to we've had
a wide cross section of the community. So I'm tremendously impressed.
For example in a place like Bourke where the problems of that city, the
social problems, the difficulties between Aboriginal Australians and other
Australians in that town were being tackled not in a pejorative way by
the community, not with one group sitting in a corner and negotiating
with the other, but rather with everybody seeing it as a community challenge
and a community problem. And I've sought wherever possible to get
a view of what the attitude of the community is not by meeting one individual
group. I haven't had separate meetings with the National Farmers
Federation, or separate meetings with the Aboriginal land councils, or
separate meetings with this or that. Rather what I've done is to
come to gatherings like this and to talk to people as a group. I think
you get a group ambience, you get a better cross section of opinion, you
get a more understanding responsive give and take attitude when you go
to a community gathering like this, rather than trying to get all of your
information from one specific group.
But it has been a great experience and I've learnt a lot. And of
course in this job you go on learning and you go on getting better understanding
and better insights. Can I conclude by saying to you what a tremendously
capable and energetic member you have in Larry Anthony. Larry has not
been a member for very long but he has risen fast because he's done
well. And he's an energetic person who comes from a very long and
honourable family of political tradition, and he's giving very effective
representation to this community. So ladies and gentlemen thank you most
warmly for your very kind hospitality and your traditional Australian
friendliness. I value it very much.
[Ends]