E&OE..................
Well thank you Fran, Senator Robert Hill, my parliamentary colleague Petro Georgio, ladies and gentlemen, it';s nice to be back in Warburton. I am of course no stranger to Fran';s electorate, I';ve visited various parts of it on numerous occasions over the last five and a half years and I';m delighted to be here during the course of this election campaign, not only to launch the Coalition';s environment policy, and what more beautiful setting there could be, I';m a little sort of, I cast a longing eye towards the first tee, I haven';t had much time for that over the last several months and I certainly won';t have a great deal of time for it, in fact no time for it at all over the next couple of weeks. But ladies and gentlemen it';s great to be in Fran';s electorate. Can I say to you she is an outstandingly energetic and enthusiastic advocate for the people of McEwen. She gives anybody heaps who doesn';t do the right thing by McEwen, doesn';t matter if it';s the Prime Minister, a minister, doesn';t matter, she';s in there punching for her electorate. And it';s a diverse electorate, there are very few electorates in Australia that have quite the diversity that the electorate of McEwen has. And therefore it';s no easy task but she gets around and she represents the different parts of it with great skill and great application. And can I say speaking from a Liberal Party perspective, as you might expect me to do from time to time during this election campaign, it';s a tough seat too, not an easy seat, don';t take it for granted, I know she doesn';t and its going to be a tough seat for us to hold on to but if we continue to work hard and to apply ourselves to issues that are important to people then I';m sure that Fran is going to get over the line on the 10th of November.
There are many things that I could talk about this morning, this election campaign is really being conducted under the umbrella if I can put it that way of two overriding issues and two overriding concerns. And they are the issues of national security broadly defined and the issue of economic management. Now in the area of national security we do live in difficult and challenging times. And we';ve made it very clear that national security is something that embraces not only the defence of this country and our involvement in international relations but it also involves the very important issue of border protection. And I';ve made it very clear now for months that we';re going to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. And we also make that declaration against the background of having over the years been a very open and generous society to people from different parts of the world. There is no country in the world that has absorbed within its borders and within its cultural embrace people from such diverse backgrounds and it';s one of the great strengths of this country and it';s going to remain that way.
And of course the issue of economic management remains central to who ought to govern the country over the next there years. You can';t achieve anything in areas like the environment, in areas like health, in areas like education, in areas like aged care unless you have a growing economy. And over the last five and a half years we have been able to pour record resources into those areas. And I';ll come to the environment in just a moment. But let me just quote one example of the record resources that we';ve been able to pour into those very important areas because we';ve had a growing economy. We are frequently accused by the Labor Party of shortchanging government schools. Can I remind you that over the last five and a half years the federal government has increased by 43 per cent the amount of money it has devoted to government schools, even though the primary funding responsibility for government schools rests with the state governments to own and operate. And that is despite the fact that enrolments in government schools over that same period have only risen by 1.8 per cent. So against the 1.8 per cent increase in enrolments the federal government, my government, the Coalition Government has increased federal government funding by something in the order of 43 per cent.
But ladies and gentlemen I';ve come here particularly to launch the Commonwealth Government';s, the Coalition';s environment policy. And I really am delighted to have Robert Hill here because Robert has been the Environment Minister in the Coalition government for the last five and a half years. And one of the features of our policy over the last five and a half years has been the priority that we have given to the environmental area through the senior status of the minister who has had responsibility for it. As leader of the government in the Senate and the third ranking member of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party, Robert is the most senior minister at a federal level that has ever had responsibility for environment matters in the history of this country. The concern for the environment is, and has been for some years, a mainstream political issue. It is not something at the periphery, it is not something that just interest groups are fond of, if we';ve got a bit of time and a few resources left over. Everybody now believes passionately that we ought to aspire towards having both a growing economy and also a willingness to nurture and care for our environment. We don';t see them as exclusive, we don';t see them as competing, we see the two of them as reinforcing. And that has been a hallmark of the approach that we have adopted in the time that we have been in government.
And we have over the last five and a half years from the time I launched our environmental policy in 1996 in the Dandenongs with Bob Charles and Rod Kemp and a number of others and it was the beginning of a wonderful record of achievement on the environment. I don';t believe any federal government has done more for the environment in a practical, achieving, lasting way than has this government. We established for the first time ever the Natural Heritage Trust. That';s $1.5 billion of investment in literally thousands of projects all over Australia. And we now have something in the order of 400,000 men and women around Australia who';ve been involved in 11,800 projects that have been funded by the Natural Heritage Trust. And we';re not going to stop at that. We';re going to add to that. We';ve renewed the Natural Heritage Trust to the tune of another $1 billion and there';ll be many thousands more projects that are going to be funded out of the Natural Heritage Trust. Because we believe that Australia';s current and future success will depend to a very large extent on how we find a balance between generating economic growth and economic wealth and how we nurture our environment. And our agenda in the environment for the next term delivers on that desire to achieve a balance with a major focus on areas that are facing particular stress where the environment and development come together.
Improvements to water quality are a key indicator that the environment is going to be protected and preserved. And when I spoke to the National Press Club in July of this year and threw forward to some of the challenges that would face the next government of Australia, I identified as one of the three great challenges, I identified the challenge of water quality and salinity. And if you are interested in solid practical environmental policy and achievement as distinct from some kind of superficial touching of the issue then you';ll look at long term programs that tackle the problems of water quality and the problems of salinity. It';s a lamentable reality that unless we do something about water quality in 20 years time the drinking water for the people of Adelaide will not be fit for human consumption in three out of every five days. So if we are serious in a long term and not a gimicky sense about the environmental future of this country we will put very heavy emphasis amongst other things on water quality.
And in our third term, if we are given one by the Australian people, we';re going to maintain the high level ministerial focus on the environment. One of the things that I have found very beneficial as Prime Minister is the opportunity it gives me in a number of specific areas to chair special Prime Minister';s committees which involve both cabinet ministers and also outside experts. I have learnt a great deal about the scientific, innovative, and technological challenges and needs of this country through chairing the Prime Minister';s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council over the last five and a half years. And it was largely the work of that body that led to our $3 billion Backing Australia';s Ability program which I announced at the beginning of this year and is really giving practical expression to the commitment we all have to lifting our performance in areas of science and research. And because of that very good experience and because I believe it kept me and my senior colleagues in very close contact with the needs of that area, I intend if we are re-elected to establish a new environment committee of Cabinet which I will chair and will naturally include the Environment Minister, and the Minister for Agriculture, and the Minister for Resources. And it will, like the Prime Minister';s Science Council, from time to time draw on the expert contribution of people who have a lot to contribute in the environmental area.
We are as I said going to devote another $1 billion over the years ahead, over the next five years for the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust. And one of the focuses, one of the key focus of that investment of $1 billion will be the issue of water quality. We intend to go on working with the states and territories to develop agreed national standards for water quality, salinity and biodiversity. You will recall that a year ago I committed $700 million to be matched on a dollar for dollar basis with the states to tackle the very challenging problem of salinity and water quality. We have negotiated arrangements with the states. There';s been a little bit of dragging of the feet on the part of some of the Labor states in the lead up to the election and I have no doubt that if the Coalition is successful then that sort of nonsense will stop and we';ll immediately achieve some further progress.
But can I commit the Coalition today that out of the money that';s going to be invested in the Natural Heritage Trust, the additional $1 billion, I commit the Coalition to very high priority of expenditure on issues of water quality and measures to improve the quality of the water of Australia. We would expect out of that $1 billion to spend at least $350 million on measures to improve our water quality. And the rest of the Trust expenditure will also lead to improvements in water quality as well. For example expenditure on protecting biodiversity and restoring native bush will also help improve water quality because they will bring about an improvement in the overall health of the catchment. The environment is of course the whole system and not something that can be looked at in self contained compartments.
These funds will provide support in areas like restoring native vegetation, along river banks, improving farm management practices to reduce nutrient run off, and changes to infrastructure such as weirs and dams.
The trust is going to have a very clear focus on regional outcomes and we';ll work with communities in developing work plans and targets. We';ll support communities, not dictate to them. And this extra provision of at least $350 million out of the $1 billion of the renewed Natural Heritage Trust will of course be on top of the $700 million that we have committed to already in partnership with the states with their matching money of $700 million to tackle the problem of the environment. And as well as of course the $75 million that we';re providing to improve environmental water flows in the Murray River.
It will take years to adequately restore areas of Australia that have been damaged by salinity and the struggle to improve water quality and to stabilise the quality of water and prevent it deteriorating further is not something that is going to be dealt with overnight. It is not something which involves flashy environmental headlines, but it is something that will do more to contribute in the long term to the preservation of Australia';s natural environment than anything else.
There were many people in 1996 that didn';t believe me and didn';t believe us when we said that we would be a pro-environment government. There were many people who said we were going to be a government that would believe in development at all costs, we would be a government that would only be interested in placating potential polluters and rather indifferent to the environment. I believe over the last five and a half years, particularly under the stewardship of Robert Hill who may I say has achieved two quite outstanding results at international conferences for Australia in the area of the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. Everybody will remember the difficulties we faced at Kyoto in 1997 and he came away from that meeting with a magnificent result for Australia but a result that committed this country to achieving, indeed surpassing many targets in the area of greenhouse gas emissions. And he did the same thing at the Berlin conference this year where we came away with an outcome where in areas like carbon sinks and trading that people never imagined that Australia could possibly do. The reality is that we have punched above our weight in the international environmental debate. We want an all embracing international agreement in relation to greenhouse gas emissions. But to be all embracing it must include the United States which is the major industrialised country and it must of course include developing countries otherwise Australia will be left at a competitive disadvantage.
But Robert has done an outstanding job as our Environment Minister and under his leadership we have been able to stare down those critics of ours who said that we were only interested in what they would call rampaging development and completely indifferent to the environment. We have been able to achieve a balance. We have been able to match economic growth and economic strength with environmental concern and environmental nurturing and I am especially proud that a Coalition Government has achieved this. We have delivered on those commitments and I';m very proud to launch this policy. It renews our commitment, it puts real dollars into practical areas of environmental concern and environmental improvement. And I know that if we are re-elected on the 10th of November one of the great beneficiaries will be practical projects for the Australian environment. I again warmly commend this policy to you. I thank Robert Hill for the tremendous job he';s done as my Environment Minister. And most importantly of all today here in Warburton I commend Fran Bailey to you. She';s a great lady, a great fighter for you. But please don';t take anything for granted. It';s going to be tough. It';s always difficult getting a third term. Always. And we have preferences directed against us in a number of seats by the Australian Democrats who I regret to say have displayed their pro-Labor bias. The Australian Democrats used to rejoice in the description of keeping the two major parties, they described in very unflattering terms, the two major parties honest. This time they have abandoned any pretext and their preference policy is blatantly pro-Labor and I find that particularly to be criticised given the very strong environmental record of the Coalition over the last five and a half years. So that bit of extra effort will be needed to make certain that Fran wins on the 10th of November. Please get behind her. She';s a great member and she';s a great representative for the people of McKewen.
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