E&OE..................
Well thank you very much Everald for your very kind words of welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, I';m absolutely delighted to hear that our tax initiative has had such wide spread support. I always wanted to be a Prime Minister for all seasons. But it is for Janette and I a pleasure to be able to keep the commitment I made some time ago to address this conference, to renew my association with many of the people who';ve led this organisation, and to express my admiration and respect for the wonderful job it does in representing the senior section, the more experienced section, and a section of the Australian population that still has so much to offer in the years ahead to the Australian community.
I often think of how things have changed in relation to some fundamental political attitudes in the 27 years that I';ve been a Member of Parliament. And it';s only 24 years since a constitutional amendment was carried to place an age limit on the tenure of office of federal judges. At the time in the late 1970s that was regarded as something that was a desirable, normal, natural thing to do. I actually believe that if such a proposal were mooted now, and I don';t believe it would probably be by either side of politics, it would very likely be resoundingly defeated. Because I think we have in the space of a generation passed from a point at which the vogue so to speak was early retirement and the vogue was to classify people according to the age cohort in which they fell, now quite rightly the attitude of Australians increasingly is that people are judged according to their enthusiasm, their capacity and their desire to contribute to the Australian community, irrespective of their age. And I think if this organisation celebrates anything, and it celebrates many things, it celebrates that very mature and that very intelligent approach.
I';ve had a very close association with the leadership of your organisation over the time that I';ve been Prime Minister and I';ve always found it a source of very good advice in relation to policies that are relevant to senior Australians. And over the past few months that has been no exception. Many of you will be aware of the measures that were included in this year';s budget, and I can say to you without any fear of contradiction that the advice and the representation and the advocacy I receive from your organisation, the National Seniors'; Association, that that advice played a very significant part in assembling the policies that we implemented in the May budget.
But our approach since being elected five and a half years ago, and I hope you will forgive me because this is an election campaign if I stray occasionally, just occasionally into partisan advocacy, but our priority has been to serve the interests of what I normally describe as the mainstream of the Australian community. In other words to look at the challenges and the issues that affect different sections of the Australian population, without any perceived notions regarding age or background or occupation or any other thing that might in a superficial way define people other than the contribution they make to the Australian community. And so it was that we decided when we put together the budget in May of this year, we recognised for example that whilst low interest rates are of enormous benefit to people who are buying their homes, and low interest rates are of enormous benefit for people who are running small business, and they';re of enormous benefit for people who run farms, they';re not undiluted joy so far as many retired and senior Australians are concerned. Because many of you rely on income from investments for your livelihood and for your income stream. And that is why I was determined when we put together the budget in May of this year, I was determined in the measures that we introduced that affected retired Australians and senior Australians, I was absolutely determined that both through the tax mechanism and the extension of the Commonwealth Seniors'; Card that we would go some of the way towards recognising that lower interest rates, while great for home buyers and others were not so great for your section of the Australian community.
And as a result, as you are aware, we introduced a number of very significant changes to, some very significant changes to the taxation system that have resulted in a significantly enhanced taxation break, so much so that people in relation to a single income stream of up to $20,000 and then a couple income stream in the order of $32,500 before any tax liability is imposed. And I';m very proud of that particular measure because I think it has gone a significant way towards recognising the fact that lower interest rates has a differential impact according to what section of the population you are in. And I may make the same comment in relation to the extension of the Commonwealth Seniors'; Card so that that is now available to some tens of thousands of additional Australians as a result of the changes that we have introduced in the May budget.
One of the other things that I spoke of, or rather the Treasurer spoke of, when he brought down the budget in May of this year was our desire to begin the process of ensuring that retired or senior Australians who were not in receipt of the pension or the part pension might begin to enjoy some of the fringe benefits that are available to people in those two groups but are currently not available to Australians of the same age. That does involve the process of negotiation with the various states because so many of those things are provided by state and territory governments throughout Australia. But today in the context of that commitment in the budget I am in a position to announce that the Coalition will, if it is re-elected, commit $20 million to two initiatives to enhance the community participation and activity of Australia';s seniors. We will provide greater access to public transport for seniors, we';ll remove some corporate governance barriers, and we also intend to fund a productive ageing initiative.
The major announcement I have to make today in this area is that the Coalition, if re-elected, will provide $19 million over four years to fund reciprocal transport concessions to enable state government seniors card holders to travel on concessional rates in any part of Australia. It really is not acceptable that those sorts of concessions should be limited to intra-state travel and this will be an initiative of the Commonwealth Government that will effectively remove any state or territorial barriers to the use of those entitlements. And this commitment will assist many senior Australians to continue to enjoy a more active life, allowing them to maximise participation in their local communities.
We also intend if re-elected to amend the corporations law to remove the upper age restriction for directors of public companies under section 201c of the Corporations Law because we believe that the current restrictions are an unwarranted discrimination against older Australians.
And we also intend to provide, as I foreshadowed a moment ago, a $1 million contribution over four years towards the establishment of a productive aging centre at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. We believe that it is not only important to provide initiatives which enable people to live a very active and fulfilling life in their senior years, but also to fund study into different methods in which that goal can be achieved.
Ladies and gentlemen, senior Australians contribute to the Australian community in many different ways. Many of them contribute through ongoing full time employment, others choose to gear their employment and business contributions in a more part time way, others choose to do an increasing amount of community or volunteer work, and others of course combine those responsibilities and those pursuits with a very significant variety of roles as carers within the Australian community. As you all know this country has a great volunteer tradition. As the Sydney Olympic Games demonstrated, the most positive face this country presented to the world on that particular occasion was the great volunteer spirit of the average Australian. And that volunteer spirit manifests itself in so many ways, it doesn';t only manifest itself when there is some kind of national challenge, when there are bush fires or floods or other community challenges, it doesn';t only manifest itself in relation to the wonderful work of the volunteers at a great national event or international event such as the Olympic Games. It also of course manifests itself 24 hours a day, seven days a week in which in a very selfless way probably millions of Australians in different ways to different degrees care for their loved ones, care for relatives, care for friends, make life a little happier, a little easier for those who are less fortunate than what they may happen to be.
And therefore the role of carers within the Australian community and in a sense being a carer is the ultimate and most profound expression of the Australian volunteer spirit. It';s a contribution normally based on love and affection but it';s a contribution that makes an immense difference to the kind of country in which we live and the kind of people we are. And therefore it is important that we continue as a society and as a nation to honour the enormous contribution that are made by carers within the Australian community. Many of them carry enormous burdens, burdens that many of us perhaps will never fully comprehend or never fully understand. And therefore as part of our election policy commitments I want to announce today that the Coalition will provide an additional $80 million over four years in new funding to support Australia';s 2.3 million carers with special attention being given to carers of people with dementia and ageing carers of people with disabilities.
The Coalition';s election commitments to providing more resources for residential and community care now exceed half a billion dollars following today';s announcement I, having announced yesterday some elements of that overall package, and the Deputy Prime Minister on behalf of the Government having announced our additional commitment to the funding of nursing home and other retirement arrangements in country Australia. The Coalition';s commitments are specifically designed to give people the choice to be cared for at home and close to family and friends. The $80 million carers package is a recognition of the significant contribution made by Australia';s 2.3 million carers. It will provide additional support to carers by providing expanding respite services, targeting support for carers of people with dementia and support for ageing carers of people with disabilities. The package includes $10 million to expand the number of respite services with a particular priority given to respite services for carers in rural and remote areas. $10 million to assist with the cost of equipment and transport, $10 million for emotional and psychological support for carers, $30 million targeted to supporting ageing carers of people with disabilities, a particular area of need, including aged care packages specifically for ageing carers of people with disabilities, a pilot programme to educate and train volunteer carers and assistance with the cost of respite, transport, equipment and other services for ageing carers and $20 million targeted to supporting carers of people with dementia, including assistance with the cost of residential respite and the expansion of psycho-geriatric care units. These initiatives are designed to build on a number of initiatives that have been announced by the Government over the past few years to expand the support that we give to the 2.3 million carers within the Australian community. And taken together with the announcements that the Government has made in the area of nursing home, residential aged care, community aged, community care packages, it represents the most comprehensive outline of new funding and new programmes that the Coalition has launched over the last five and a half years, directed to provide support in this particular area.
Ladies and gentlemen as I think all of you know it is one thing to have a series of specific initiatives which are designed to meet a need and to respond to a legitimate concern in a particular area of the Australian community. You also in addition to that, you also must have the capacity through a strong and growing economy to fund the many things that you want to do. I';ve said frequently over the past few weeks, indeed I';ve been saying it in the whole time that I';ve been Prime Minister that we may have aspirations to spend more money on particular areas, we may have goals to increase our support for this or that section of the Australian community, but unless we have a strong and growing economy which generates the revenues, provides you with the economic capacity to fund the expansion of those services, all the aspirations and all the promises in the world are going to amount to nought. And that is why the Government in the time it has been in office has placed such a premium on managing the economy well so that we are in a position to provide the additional services and the additional support that we would like to provide. There are many things that we have introduced over the last few years that have been of benefit to senior Australians, I think back over for example of the introduction of the 30 per cent tax rebate for private health insurance. We now have almost 45 per cent of the Australian population covered by private health insurance, when we came to office that figure was about 33 per cent and it fell to the dangerous level of about 31 per cent. Now we have injected $2.5 billion a year into supporting the choice that many of you make and many of your fellow Australians make in order to have private health insurance, to give yourself the extra security, the extra choice, the extra opportunity that we believe all Australians should have and as well as introducing that tax rebate we've also introduced lifetime health cover, which is designed to bring younger Australians and to provide them with an incentive to take out private health insurance. But that is one of many examples of things that have been made possible because of the prudent way in which the Australian economy has been managed.
We are approaching a difficult time, not only in Australia';s experience as part of the world community but also the world itself. We';re all very conscious of the changed circumstances of the world since the appalling attack in the United States on the 11th of September. That is not only an appalling event in its political and human implications but of course it is going to have an impact on world economic growth and world economic activity. And that is why it is so important that Australia now be able to draw on the economic strength that we have gathered over the last few years. It is fortunate that Australia at the moment has a balanced budget, it is fortunate that we have repaid so much of our national debt, it is fortunate that we have low interest rates, it is fortunate that we have low inflation, it is fortunate that we have a new taxation system which in the years ahead will deliver growing revenues to provide increasing services to an aging population. The reality is that the reforms to the taxation system, which I recognise were controversial in many sections of the Australian community, but I still firmly believe were to the long term benefit of this country. And one of the greatest benefits that tax reform has delivered to Australia is that it has given us a revenue base which in the years ahead will grow with the economy and as a result we will have increasing resources to provide a growing number of services that will be needed by an active fit energetic but aging population. And of the things that we have done over the last few years none in the economic sphere has been more difficult than that particular change. But it was necessary in Australia';s interests. The easy thing would have been to have shelved it and said it was too hard, the popular thing would have been to have shelved it and said it was too hard, but that would not have been a keeping faith with the longer term benefits that have come from taxation reform and the longer term contribution that I believe taxation reform has made to the strength of the Australian economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a challenging time for Australia but it is not a time to feel daunted, although we are engaged now in an important struggle with our friends in the United States and our friends elsewhere. And although that of course is a concern to all of us we ought to draw an enormous comfort from the fact that we have some fundamental strengths and we have a spirit and a determination as a group of people that bring us together. Because out of the tragedy and the disaster and the horror of those events in the United States in September has come the reality that whenever there';s a challenge to the Australian community Australians have a great capacity to work together and to pull together for the common good. And I know that that will be the spirit that will be reflected throughout the Australian community over the months ahead and that is something that as Prime Minister I feel now and I know that many people feel as they move around our country.
May I again say to all of you that you belong to a very strong organisation, you belong to an organisation that has a great capacity to articulate the needs and concerns of the section of the Australian community which you represent. All of us as we pass through life make different contributions at different stages of our contribition and participation in Australian society. And it was no accident that yesterday I sought in the plans that I outlined for the future on behalf of the Coalition, I sought to touch upon the needs and the aspirations of different sections of the Australian community. We are a healthier community than we were a generation ago, we are living longer, we have legitimate aspirations for very long and healthy lives. Most importantly we all have legitimate aspirations to be able to contribute to Australian society at every stage of our lives, according to our willingness and according to our ability and not to suffer any barrier or restriction or discrimination according to our age or according to our background. And I know that that is a goal of the seniors association, it';s a goal that I respect, it';s a goal that I share and it';s a goal that the Government in the time that it has been in office has endeavoured to respond to in so many ways.
I thank you very warmly for inviting me along here today, I promise you that if I am re-elected as Prime Minister on the 10th of November I will continue the very strong dialogue I';ve had with your association, I will continue where possible to respond to our advocacy and to respond to the propositions that you put to me on behalf of this very very important and growing section of the Australian community.
Thank you.
[ends]