E&OE...
Well thank you very much Mark for those very, very warm words of introduction to you and your wife Wendy, to Andrew and Cathy Stoner, to the Mayor and his wife to you Madam Chairman, and good wishes in the upcoming battle to all the other guests and supporters of our great cause, it's a great pleasure to be here, it's an enormous privilege for me to visit for the first time as Prime Minister, Mark Vaile's electorate.
I have been to Port Macquarie before perhaps not over the last 10 years, but I certainly have been here on many occasions in other guises less well recognised and less pursued by people waiving friendly placards than was today. But the other reason why I am particularly delighted to be here and to be at this lunch is that it gives me the opportunity as Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, to declare again how very important the coalition between our two great parties is to the future of this country. I am first and foremost a Liberal, as Mark is first and foremost a National. But we are together, committed to the maintenance of a strong coalition between our two parties. And as leader of the Government over the last almost 11 years, I have been extremely fortunate to have had three outstanding leaders of the National Party and three outstanding Deputy Prime Ministers in Tim Fischer, in John Anderson and now in Mark Vaile. Each of them has brought a special quality to that job, it's not an easy job when you have a coalition in government, it's always harder when you are the leader of the smaller group numerically within the Coalition, but Mark has always put as John and Tim did, the interests of the unity of the Government and the interests of the country ahead of any particular sectional interests, and I've always tried to understand the importance within a coalition of both sides having a place in the sun and both sides having a reasonable seat at the table. And I want to say how deeply I am in Mark's debt for the loyalty that the National Party has shown to the Coalition and the wonderful partnership that we have been able to forge in the time that he has been Deputy Prime Minister. He is a wonderful colleague and friend, he was an outstanding Minister for Trade, he led the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and as the years roll by and the benefits of that Free Trade Agreement become more apparent, the people will look back on it and say who was the minister responsible for that was your own local member Mark Vaile.
It's also an opportunity for me to wish Andrew Stoner the very best of good luck and the closeness of the Coalition federally is mirrored at a state level. The New South Wales Government is the most criticised and despised state government anywhere in the country. I know state governments pretty well, I deal with them on a daily basis, and I've got to say that as I move around the country there's no state government that's subject to more criticism on a regular basis, than the New South Wales Government. And we will do all we can at a federal level to assist Peter and assist Andrew to bring about a change of government in this state, heaven knows it desperately needs it. I noticed that there is a little slogan here, it's more than a slogan here, it's more than a slogan, it's a statement of what is important about the future of this country. Now it's true that Bill Clinton had a slogan saying it's the economy stupid, and it's true that notwithstanding that injunction, that the economy is not everything. The human condition and non-economic things are very important in our lives. But it is also a reality that if you don't have a strong economy there are a lot of things that you can't achieve. There's been a lot of debate over the last few weeks about the National Plan for Water Security that I announced on the 25th of January and we've had all sorts of statements from certain Premiers and the Premier of South Australia and the Premier of Victoria, and the Premier of Queensland and they've been running around giving me all sorts of advice and they've given me some interventions from the leader of the Federal Opposition and some of his colleagues. And what they seem to overlook is that the investment under this plan is an additional $10 billion and if you didn't have a strong economy, we wouldn't be able to afford it. They seem to take it for granted that the money is always there, but the money is only there because of the decisions Mark and I and our colleagues have taken over the last 10 years to get the Budget out of deficit and back in surplus. Peter Costello made the point in parliament yesterday that when we came into office there was $96 billion debt and the debt-servicing burden of that $96 billion was almost the $10 billion, the annual debt-servicing burden was almost the $10 billion that we are making available for this water plan. And the point of that, my friends, is that unless you've got a strong economy, you can't afford to invest in infrastructure projects, you can't afford to provide the changes that we have provided over the last three years that have led to the highest bulk-billing rates for GP's in this country is verified by the figures that came out at 12 noon today; the highest bulk-billing rates we've had for years. We now have nationally a bulk-billing rate of 77 per cent and for children under 16 it's about 84 per cent. Now those rates were falling and we decided several years ago that we'd make some changes, we'd provide more incentives for GP's to bulk bill. If we'd had been in deficit we couldn't have afforded it any more than we could have afforded to invest $10.5 billion dollars or invest the $9 to $10 billion that the establishment of two new infantry battalion is going to cost over the next few years. Yet whenever you hear from the Labor Party there's never any acknowledgement that it's strong economic management that makes the funding of these things possible. They are happy to give you advice about what to do with the money, they are happy to deal that there ought to be more for their Labor mates in different parts of the country, but if you look back at their record, at every turn they tried to stop us making the economic changes that have given us the wherewithal to afford these important investments for Australia's future.
When we came into government we had that $96 billion of government debt and we set about getting rid of the deficit and at every turn the Labor Party opposed us. They not only left us with a huge debit they tried to stop us paying it off. And now they've got the nerve to tell us what to do with the money that we've saved through our policies. And that is essentially the hypocrites they are when it comes to economic management. I mean they opposed us cutting expenditure in 1996, they voted against the first round of workplace relations reform, they bitterly opposed the reforms to the Australian waterfront that have made this country a lot more productive and our exporters given a much fairer go. They oppose root and branch taxation reform, they oppose the second round of industrial relations reform, they ridiculed, initially, the policy in relation to Australian Technical Colleges. At every turn they are tried to stop us getting the country back into shape, and yet they've got the nerve to just take it for granted that the money will be there for anything that they might want to do. And the other thing that the new leader of the Opposition is doing is trying to create the impression that there's not much difference between us and them when it comes to economic management.
Well I want to tell you ladies and gentlemen, there is a huge difference, the huge difference is that we've got the runs on the on board and they are made up of a large number of highly inexperienced people. The Australian economy does not run on autopilot. There is a view being put around by Mr Rudd that really, the current economic condition will continue irrespective of who is in office. Well don't believe that, it won't. They opposed everything virtually that we have done to get the economy in the good shape it is now. Why would you expect that if they got into office they wouldn't revert to type and start embracing the policies that would put us back in the situation that we inherited 11 years ago. We are living in a time now where economic management is more challenging than ever before. It's when you've had a number of years of success that the real challenge is to have the right policies to keep that prosperity going. And you won't keep Australia's prosperity going but getting rid of our industrial relations system that we've fought hard to bring about. You won't keep prosperity going if you bring back the nightmare of unfair dismissal laws for small business. You won't keep the prosperity of this country going if you hand back the control of the industrial relations system to the trade union movement. And you won't maintain the prosperity of this country if you go back to the sort of policies that produced year after year of Budget deficits and $96 billion of government debt.
And I wanted to make the point to you, my friends, that there's nothing fortuitous or guaranteed about economic prosperity. That old saying of, was it, Arnold Palmer or Gary Player that the harder I....the more I practice the luckier I get. If I can adapt that to politics and not golf - because I don't seem to get luckier even if I do practice - but if I could adopt it to politics what it really means is that the harder you work at good policy, the better the outcome, and that economic management is not some kind of automatic autopilot thing. It's the product of years and years of committed hard work and this is not a time to contemplate handing the Australian economy over to people who are inexperienced.
Yesterday we had the lowest unemployment figure in this country for 32 years. I mean it is a magnificent figure of 4.5 per cent and there's something at the back of my mind that tells me that when we introduced WorkChoices in March of last year, the Labor Party and the union movement said that there would be mass sackings. They said that there would mass industrial disputes, they said that wages would be driven into the ground. The exact opposite has happened. We now have the lowest unemployment rate in 32 years, we've seen more than 200,000 jobs created since WorkChoices was introduced, we have the lowest number of industrial disputes since records began to be kept before World War I and we have real wages continuing to rise and they're now 17.9 per cent higher than what they were way back in 1996. Every single prediction they made about the world coming to end and the sky falling in has turned out to be wrong. Yet they if they win power at the next Federal Election will take us back to the industrial relations regime of earlier days, where, as Greg Combet rightly said, it wouldn't be a bad idea if the union movement started running the country again.
Now I don't want that to happen and that won't keep our economy strong and that won't maintain our prosperity. And we have, as a political movement, our two parties, we have a big fight ahead of us. The longer you are in office, the more prone people are to say, oh well, it sort of runs itself doesn't it? It doesn't run itself, I can assure you. It takes hard work, 365 days of the year to keep the Australian economy running effectively. It takes some imaginative policies to tackle things like the shortage of skilled tradesmen and women, something that we're tackling with these Australian Technical Colleges. They were derided by the Labor Party when they were first announced, they've now sort of gone a bit soft, they don't quite know and they're going to somehow or other hand them back to the states, heavens above, under Labor Governments, it's different under a Coalition Government, I wouldn't find that an appealing prospect at all.
But we do have in front of us a big struggle, but we have a lot going for us. We have the success of the last 10 years, we have a united coalition, we have the lowest unemployment rate in 32 years, we have high levels of confidence, we have a moderating and very low level of inflation, we have Australia seen around the world as an attractive place in which to invest and also a place that's prepared to stand up for what it believes is right when it comes to issues of international relations. And importantly, because of our economic management, we have the wherewithal to tackle long term infrastructure problems that this country has and it takes me back to the water plan I announced just under a month ago.
This represents the biggest single commitment to solving the water infrastructure problems of Australia represented by the Murray-Darling Basin ever put forward by any government at any level in this country. You won't solve the problem of the Murray-Darling Basin if you maintain the current governance arrangements. There's a built in recipe for dispute. The states compete with each other and you need a national framework. The rivers of Australia do not respect state boundaries, nor does the Great Artesian Basin that lies under a number of states and territories of Australia. It's different with a local dam, it's different with a city water supply, but when you're dealing with a river system that straddles a number of states, it is unworkable to leave it with a governance structure that just represents the lowest common denominator.
There was a voluntary agreement in the early 1990s to introduce caps in the Murray-Darling Basin. For 12 years those caps have been ignored by Queensland and the ACT and they've been frequently violated by New South Wales. You can't fix the problem of the Murray-Darling Basin unless you fix the problem of over allocation. And you can't address the issue of over allocation unless you are willing to pay proper levels of compensation. You can't just take back entitlements from people without compensating them in a reasonable way. Now we are willing to do that. Part of our plan is to allocate $3 billion for structural adjustment so that we can address the issue of over allocation. No state government has promised to do that and the behaviour of the New South Wales Labor Government in the Namoi Valley has been an example of their unwillingness to fairly compensate until they are absolutely dragged screaming to the reality of it, to address the issue of properly compensating people and providing proper structural adjustment.
And this is an example of a Commonwealth Government, out of that $10 billion, putting $3 billion onto the table and saying to the states, you created the problem but we are prepared not only to fix it, but we're also prepared to bear the full cost of fixing it. And I just simply say to those Premiers around the country who are picking and choosing, and complaining and criticising, and I read an article in one of the papers this morning that said that I didn't get any agreement yesterday because the Premiers wanted to inflict a little bit of political pain on me. This is above inflicting political pain on your political opponents. The Australian public will have no patience with people playing politics on something as important as this. I am a Liberal, they're all Labor, I understand all of that, but the people of Australia voted for the state governments of this country to cooperate with the Federal Government they voted for. And they will no truck or harbour with state governments around this country saying we're going to use this as a opportunity to inflict a bit of political pain on John Howard. Don't worry about me, I've had political pain inflicted on me for 32 years and you know I'm quite capable of handling it. Forget about me they should think of the people who elected them to office and the Australian people are screaming out for the governments of this country to come to the party and fix the water issue. And we've given them a plan, we've given them the money, we're asking now for their support. And the Australian people will have little patience with governments who use this as an opportunity to score political points against their political opponents.
My friends it's been great to be in your electorate. I can't endorse strongly enough what Andrew had to say about Mark and about Wendy, they've been great friends to Janette and to me over the years and most particularly in the time that Mark has been Deputy Prime Minister. We've come a long way as a coalition, and we've come a long way as a nation over the last 11 years, but we still have much more to do, we still have more challenges, we have a national prosperity to secure, we have to sensibly tackle the issue of climate change - not by knee jerk reactions that are going to destroy the jobs of coal miners and put at risk some of the great resource industries of this country - and I'm both enthusiastic, and energetic, as well as optimistic about the task ahead of us. But let me finish where I began and that is that essential to all of that is the unity of our two parties, the great coalition between the Liberal Party and the National Party, which has been the corner stone of the cohesion and the success of this Government over the last 11 years. And Mark and I together are committed to ensuring that that continues.
Thank you.
[ends]