E&OE..................
Thank you very much to Helen, to Shane Stone, Chris McDiven, Kerry Chikarovski. My federal and state parliamentary colleagues and my fellow members of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party.
Can I start this address by expressing my thanks to all of the members of the rank and file of the Party here in New South Wales for the enormous loyalty and support that you have displayed towards me and to my government and to my federal parliamentary colleagues over the last twelve months.
We are as I said after the Aston by-election, we are well and truly back in the game. But we are back in the game because of a collective effort. And can I take the opportunity of congratulating our colleagues in the Victorian Division on a tremendous team effort. That entire electorate was door knocked. The whole electorate was doorknocked during the campaign. And we won the Aston by-election because we had a great local candidate in Chris Pearce. We had a great grassroots effort from our friends in the Liberal Party in Victoria. And we also had a message. And we also had Mr Beazley who doesn't think we pay too much income tax. So it has been a great effort.
But I think it's important in reflection of that so preserve a sense of proportion. I've always tried to level with the Party's supporters. I think the first obligation of a political leader to his followers and supporters is the obligation of candour and honesty. We've had a bad six or nine months. We were doing very badly a few months ago. We were doing even more poorly a few months prior to that. We're now doing a lot better. Whether it's good enough to win at the end of the year or whenever the election is held - but I think as each month ticks by the options are narrowing let me say that, without any fear of contradiction, unless some of you want an election on the 12 January 2002. And I don't think that is very attractive, certainly not for me, there's bound to be some cricket match on that I ought to go to. I mean having missed the Ashes series I'm not going to miss what's on in January.
But ladies and gentlemen, seriously we are doing better politically and it's important that we understand why and it's important we focus on the choice that people face at the end of the year. Because elections in the end are about choices. There can be only one outcome at the next federal election. You can have a Coalition Government led by me and supported by John Anderson and Peter Costello and all of the other members of the front bench. Or you can have a Labor Government led by Kim Beazley with Simon Crean as Treasurer, and all of the other people you can think of who might comprise that team. Now that is the choice.
Now I think we are doing better essentially for three reasons. I think we are doing better because we have had the commonsense and the strength to be responsive to people's concerns in a number of areas. I have never subscribed to this theory of politics in Australia that you never adjust your policies, you never fine tune them, you never change anything. I mean that is the language of my predecessor. That is the language of political arrogance to say to the Australian public everything we've ever done from the time we got in was one hundred percent correct the first time and how dare you suggest that we adjust any of our policies or show any degree of responsiveness.
No government has embraced more reform in five and a half years than this government. No government has tackled the big issues, no government has taken on board the need to reform those things that have been left unreformed for a generation. None has done it with more vigour or more energy than the present government. And in the process of that inevitably there are going to be things that need to be fine tuned and things that need to be changed at the margin. And it is the essence of good government to have both the strength to tackle the fundamental reforms but also the commonsense and responsiveness to fine tune those reforms when fine tuning becomes necessary in the public interest. So that's one of the reasons why we're doing better.
Another reason why we are doing better is that the Australian public has now seen through and beyond the temporary interruption to economic growth occasioned by the December quarter national accounts. And they now realise that the fundamentals of the Australian economy are the best they have been for a generation. And that those fundamentals have been made better and stronger and more durable and more lasting by the economic reforms that we have carried out. They now see the situation where Australia next year, if we continue to head in the right direction, Australia next year will grow more strongly than any industrialised country. Will grow more strongly than the United States. Will grow more strongly than the nations of the European union. They see a country that has got on top of inflation that has delivered the lowest interest rates in a generation. That marvellously has doubled the number of apprenticeships over the last five and a half years.
I mean one of the things that really makes me very proud of what this government has done is the way in which we have delivered to the so called traditional constituency of the Australian Labor Party. Under this government the working men and women of Australia are better off than they were under the Hawke and Keating governments. The working men and women. The working men and women of Australia have higher wages because we have higher productivity. The working men and women of Australia have much lower interest rates because of our good economic policies. The working men and women of Australia have more jobs because we've generated more than 825,000. And the sons and daughters of the working men and women of Australia, whatever their aspirations have more opportunities through things such as the doubling of the number of apprenticeships in this country. Isn't it interesting that for twenty years the level of apprenticeships in this country languished because of the union dominated apprenticeship system. But in five and a half years we have more than doubled the number of apprenticeships for Australians to more than 300,000. Now that used to be the bread and butter of people's working opportunities, but they languished and it's taken a Liberal government, it's taken a Coalition government to revive them.
But I think the other reason ladies and gentlemen why we are doing better is precisely because we are getting nearer and nearer to the moment of choice. As each month goes by and people realise that the next big political decision will be to choose the future government of this country they are beginning to realise there is a choice. It is not a question of kicking the government in the shins without any particular consequence other than to sort of get it out of your system because you are cranky about some particular aspect of what the government has done. And every government makes mistakes, every government upsets some section of the community if it tries to do something for the long term benefit of the nation. But as we get a little closer people are beginning to realise there is choice. There is a choice between a government that whatever its faults or failings it has been prepared to govern in the long term interests of the mainstream of the Australian community. It's a government that is not bullied into submission by minority groups. It is a government that does look to the long term mainstream interests of the Australian community.
It's a government that doesn't believe that the privilege of office is something that should be enjoyed as a privilege of office but should be discharged with commitment and energy every day of our waking lives as members of the government. We are a government that has transformed not only the economic strength of this country but we have also lifted the esteem of this country in the eyes of the other nations of the world. The reputation of Australia around the world is stronger and better now than it's been at any time in my lifetime. The reputation of this country. We are seen as a strong and open and fair and successful and progressive and cohesive society. We are seen as a nation that is a beacon of tolerance and humanity for the rest of the world. No nation has more successfully absorbed people from all around the world in such harmony and peace as has the Australian nation. And no nation deserves the reputation of a tolerant cohesive society more than does Australia.
So ladies and gentlemen as we get closer to the choice, the moment of decision people are starting to focus on that choice. That's one of the reasons we did better in Aston let's face it, than people predicted. That's one of the reasons why in his heart Mr Beazley knows he should have done better. That's why everybody knows that it has given us heart and hope. Because on the one hand you have a government that has been willing to take the political risks involved in fundamental reforms. Everyone knows we needed a new tax system for twenty five years. Mr Beazley knew that when he supported Option C way back in the 1980s when it was put forward by Mr Hawke and Mr Keating. Keating and Hawke both knew it as both Prime Minister, in the case of Keating as Treasurer as well. I've known it. John Hewson knew it. Everybody who has held any position of responsibility in either side of politics in the last generation has known that sooner or later somebody has had to summon the courage to do something about it. I knew it would be difficult. I knew there would be flak. I knew there would be administrative troubles, I knew there would be transitional difficulties. I knew there'd be criticism for some aspects of bringing it in. And I know there are some people who are unhappy with aspects of it. And I say to them we continue to listen to you and if it is necessary to fine tune it then we stand ready to do so. But the fundamental message is that we had the guts to do it and that makes the difference.
I think out there even those people who may be unhappy with it, they know deep down it was necessary in the long term interests of this country. And I also know that we needed industrial relations reform. One of the great success stories of this government is that we have transformed our nation's industrial relations without the industrial turmoil, the strikes, the days lost, the loss of productivity and production that was predicted by the Labor Party back in 1996. Remember when Bill Kelty stood up in front of that meeting and he said you are going to have the sonata and the symphony and the overture and all the other warnings that he gave about all of the industrial strife. Well none of that has come to pass. And the reason it has not come to pass is that the rank and file of the working men and women of Australia support our approach to industrial relations. They know that the best industrial relations are where employer and employee make common cause for the overall benefit of the firm. Because the firm makes a bigger profit and they get a better return. They know that an industrial relations system that enables people if they want to, to negotiate subject to decent minimum standards their own working conditions, that that is a far better system and a far better way of operating an industrial relations environment.
So as we approach the decision day ladies and gentlemen there is a choice. There is a choice between a government that has taken the difficult decisions. Has sort to govern for the longer term. A government comprised of men and women drawn from all sections of the Australian community and not just from the councils and halls of power of the trade union movement and the apparatchiks of the Australian Labor Party. We are comprised of a group of men and women who have business and professional, academic and other areas of background and experience. And it's a government that has sought to govern for everybody and not for one section of the Australian community.
But the contrast is with a Labor Party which after five and a half years is no closer to telling the Australian public what it believes in, what it stands for than it was on the 3 March 1996. A party led by a man who told his caucus in 1999 don't bother me with policy, we are going to surf in to office on the back of public discontent with the GST. A man who is prepared to criticise and oppose. A party that is prepared to be negative and tear down but to offer nothing positive in return or to try and build an alternative constituency for change and reform within the Australian community. We are opposed by a group of men and women who are prepared to allow the Liberal Party to do the heavy lifting of reform and change in the hope that in the transitional friction they will benefit politically. Mr Beazley famously hates the GST so much that he is going to keep it.
The last few days of the Aston by-election were very revealing because they focussed the public spotlight on the great dilemma the Labor Party faces. And they are now running out of time to explain just how they're going to do it. How you are simultaneously going to roll back the GST which, if that is to mean anything will cost hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. That's number one. You're going to roll that back. You're not going to do it at the expense of the States because when Mr Beazley went to Burnie he gave a guarantee to Bracks and Bacon and Beattie, at Burnie, that they weren't going to be left any worse off. So you leave the States alone. You roll back the GST, that costs hundreds of millions or a couple of billion to mean anything. Oh, but of course we're going to have a bigger surplus than the Liberal Party. I mean, I'll just repeat that, a bigger surplus than the Liberal Party. So you add that and on top of that of course we're going to spend more money on health and education and science and a whole lot of other things. And having criticised the Liberal Party for spending money on country roads of course in the fine print of our policy commitment we're not going to take that away either. And at the end of the day of course it all simply doesn't add up.
It is impossible to simultaneously roll back the GST, maintain the surplus, spend more money, not take it away from the States. It is impossible to do that unless you increase income tax. That is the only way you can do it. And we got a clue two days before the Aston by-election when Mr Beazley said and I'll quote him accurately - I say this with some vigour, I do not believe that Australians pay too much income tax. Well in the Australian idiom if you say you're not paying too much what you are really saying is that you ought to pay a bit more. We all know that, it's our way of speaking. That's what he means. He is preparing the way. He thinks in the end it's better to pay more income tax than to sacrifice any of the things he said.
Well as far as we are concerned we are going to pursue Mr Beazley with the logical impossibility of his position every day from now until the election. Until we get an answer. If he has a problem with this, it is a problem of his own negative construction. If your only political stock in trade is to snipe and trip and attack and oppose you can't complain when you get cornered by your own negativity. And that is exactly what has happened. While we have been busy building the future of this country, heading in the right direction, he's been seeking to construct a negative pathway into power and that negative pathway has brought him to this absolutely inexplicable and completely illogical dilemma. And I say to him again if you are to have any credibility as the alternative Prime Minister of this country, please tell the Australian public how can you simultaneously rollback the GST, maintain revenue to the States, keep the budget surplus, spend more money on education and not increase income tax. It is impossible.
And ladies and gentlemen I think the growing realisation that after five and a half years, the alternative Prime Minister of this country has done nothing to build an alternative political philosophy and alternative policy, that is one of the reasons I believe that we achieved the result that we did in the Aston by-election.
Let me say to you my friends that the next four and a half months, give or take a month or two or a week or two or a day or two, the next four and a half months so described is going to be very hard. Winning a third term is difficult. We would be foolish, with the natural enthusiasm and heart we feel as a result of the Aston result, we'd be foolish to interpret it as meaning that the next four and a half months is going to be anything other than extremely difficult. We are still behind, and I still believe that if the election was held now that we'd be struggling to win. I don't mind saying that. One of the things I've learnt after 27 years is that in the end the public gets a bit tired of you not sort of talking in language that they regard as real and that they can understand. And you do go up and down in politics. We live in a community where people are less rusted on to political parties than they used to be. And they are more volatile and that is why we have been able to recover ground this year. But we can lose that ground again if we don't focus clearly and sharply and in a co-ordinated fashion on the alternatives I laid out at the beginning of my speech.
Our position is very simple. We have restored the Australian economy. We've undertaken major reforms. We've committed major budget resources to many important areas such as defence and roads and salinity and other aspects of the environment and welfare reform. And when people say to me what is your agenda for the third term I say that agenda is in large part the implementation of the programmes that we have laid out over the last twelve or eighteen months. The defence of Australia is not something you come and leave in the space of eighteen months. The defence of Australia is a long term undertaking. And every last dollar committed in that White Paper will be delivered by the Coalition if it is returned.
Tackling the problem of salinity is not something you deal with other than over a ten year period. Repairing Australia's country roads will take years to undertake and so the list goes on. But I say to you again as we have said repeatedly over recent months that our priority if additional resources through higher budget surpluses become available, our priority will be to further reduce the level of income tax in this country.
Our priority is not to spend all of those additional surpluses on rolling back the GST or additional government spending. So that is our priority and it is a very clear priority. But I make that commitment off the back of leading a government that has made a major long term investment in necessary areas of government responsibility. A government that has restored the balance between public and private provision in health. A government that has injected something in the order of two and a half to three billion dollars a year extra into encouraging people to take out private health insurance. A government that has restored and strengthened the freedom of choice that ought to be available to the parents of Australia to decide the type of education their children receive. And under the guise of what I can only describe as envy politics, the Labor Party would put that choice at risk. Make no mistake the Labor Party's policies in the area of independent schools are the thin edge of the wedge to wind back proper treatment of independent schools within Australia.
So ladies and gentlemen we have a very, very clear choice ahead of us. We have a tough battle. We have to make certain that we return a government that has undertaken so much over the last five and a half years. We want to make sure that the Australian public rejects a party that has simply sought to thrive on the politics of transitional discontent when major reforms are undertaken. We want to be aware of the fact that if Labor wins the next election you will have not only Labor governments in five of the six States of Australia, but you will have a federal Labor government as well. And that will give to the trade union movement of Australia an unparalleled opportunity to impose its industrial anarchy and power and thuggery on the workplaces of Australia. You only have to see what has happened in Western Australia since the election of the Gallup Labor Government. Within weeks of the election of that Government, courtesy of a blind-eye turned by the new Labor Government, the notorious no-ticket no-start rule was restored to the building sites of Western Australia. The anarchy that is occurring on certain industrial sites in Victoria. The clear willingness of the trade union movement to exercise its industrial muscle to the detriment of the long-term national and public interest. If that willingness is obvious and stark with Labor in opposition federally, can you imagine how naked and open it will be before a weak, indecisive Labor Prime Minister if Labor were to win federal power as well.
So ladies and gentlemen, an additional element of the choice that people will have to make at the end of this year is whether they are prepared to take the risk of giving unparalleled, unprecedented political room to move for a rampant trade union movement within the Australian community. And I think that is something else that the Australian people focussed on in Aston. I think it's something else that the Australian people will focus on as we move to the end of this year.
Ladies and gentlemen, again my thanks. Can I say that to have been the Leader of a Coalition Government over the last five and half years has been a tremendous privilege. To have been the Prime Minister of our country of course has been the greatest privilege that can come the way of any Australian. And the opportunity it has given us to change this country for the better, the opportunity it gives us if we win again, to continue that work and to take our country forward, places on all of us a very special responsibility. This Division delivered handsomely for the Government in 1998. New South Wales has magnificent sitting members and we want to get a few more. There are a few more seats that we could win in New South Wales.
Can I tell you, I'm looking forward to the next three or four or five months. I'm going to enjoy it, because above all, I believe in it. I've never been more committed about any political goal in my life, than winning the next federal election. My energy and enthusiasm for the job is to say the least not inconsiderable. I'm supported by a wonderful team of Cabinet ministers and I particularly want to record my thanks to John Anderson, the Deputy Prime Minister, Peter Costello who's done a fantastic job in a very difficult portfolio over the last five and a half years. To Robert Hill and to Richard Alston and to Mark Vaile and to all the other ministers, particularly those who are gathered here today from New South Wales and a number such as Rod Kemp who've come from interstate. Many of them have had some difficult challenges.
Can I just simply record to you Philip my gratitude for a job extremely well done. Nothing. I mean many things in politics make you angry on occasions, but when I hear people criticising Philip Ruddock, a person whose political life has been a metaphor for fighting for fairness and decency and racial tolerance, when I hear him criticised for upholding the opposite that really does get the fifty per cent of my Irish well and truly up.
So I want to say to all of you you've done a great job. We have a long fight ahead of us. I admire the way people who have got very thin margins, sorry to single people out but perhaps on this occasion Ross Cameron for example who is fighting a really heroic battle. And people like Pat Farmer who is carrying the banner in Macarthur as a new candidate. And to all of you thank you very much for the support. We can win this. We really can. I believe that in all my heart we can win this. We might have had our doubts a few months ago but over the past few weeks there has been a sea change. As you start to see the whites of their eyes the Australian people are putting a bead on us and saying hang on what do they stand for. What do they believe in. Are they really offering an alternative. We may not be happy with this or that but I tell you what, at least they stood up for what they believed in. They have at least tried to change the country in the direction they want it to go and at least they stand for something. And that is a lot more than they can say for the Australian Labor Party.
Well I think that is about all the workout I can give my voice today. Ladies and gentlemen again my thanks. We are going to have a tremendous fight over the next few months. If we work hard, we stick together, we stay on message, we point out the contrasts, we can make it and we can go on to govern for the benefit of the whole Australia community.
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