Well thank you very much for those very warm words of welcome Paul Neville, Liz Cunningham, Mayor, ladies and gentlemen.
This I think is my first visit to Gladstone as Prime Minister, it's certainly not my first visit. I was recalling back in the middle 1960's when a friend and I decided to go for a holiday at Heron Island, we came through Gladstone and were pointed in the direction of the Railway Hotel at Calliope where we spent the night on route to Heron Island. So it's great to visit, not the first time I've been back since then incidentally but we had a shadow Cabinet meeting here in 1995.
But Paul Neville, your incredibly hard working local member spoke to me a few weeks ago about some of the development challenges that the city was having. I'm very conscious of course of many of the major projects in Gladstone and of course the Comalco project has been the subject of very significant financial support from the Federal Government and I promised Paul that when an opportunity arose I would spend a bit of time here and talk to local people in business and in local government and to him and to the leaders of the major companies to get a better idea of some of the challenges, but also many of the opportunities that are coming the way of this city. I'm very conscious and Paul keeps reminding me that something like 12 per cent of Australia's total export income in value passes through the port of Gladstone. And I'm very conscious of the capacity of this part of central Queensland to develop a speciality, particularly in light metals. And today by visiting Comalco and by talking to other people involved in current and potential investment I've had the opportunity of getting a better understanding of the circumstances in which you operate.
The mood I have encountered today is the mood of great hope and great optimism, there's a sense of buoyancy and there's a belief that a great deal can be achieved by the people and by the investors in the people and in the resources, not only of Gladstone but of the surrounding areas of Queensland. I'm very conscious that the best thing that any national government can do is to create a very strong and benign economic climate. In the end, low inflation, low interest rates, a competitive economy, a pro-investment policies, a sensible approach to the environment, and I'll return to that in a moment, they are the things that create above everything else the atmosphere for development and the atmosphere for jobs generation. We've just had some employment figures announced for the past month, and although I always enter the caution that you shouldn't place too reliance on one month's figures, the figures at six per cent unemployment were a little better than many of the commentators had predicted. But for the first time in 20 years Australia's unemployment rate is now slightly lower than that of the United States and given that in a number of areas the United States has an even freer labour market than Australia has at present, and I'd like to see Australia's labour market ever freer, particularly in the area of unfair dismissal laws for small business, it's quite a significant comparison that our unemployment rate should now have fallen slightly below that of the United States.
I think one of the things that impressed itself upon me today, especially when I visited the Comalco plant, was the overwhelming acceptance in the Australian community now that good environment policies are now mainstream pursuits. A healthy concern for the environment is on longer something at the periphery, it's not something that just fanatics are interested in, it is now something that everybody is interested in. And what we have tried to do in the seven or more years we've been in Government, we have tried to simultaneously persue the goal of a better environment but not sacrifice economic growth in the course of achieving that goal of a better environment. And that of course brings into consideration the question of the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Now our policy is that we are opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in its present form because what the Kyoto Protocol would do would be to impose obligations and penalties on Australia that would not simultaneously be imposed upon countries that would compete with Australia for investment, particularly in areas such as alumina and other parts of the resource sector. So our policy, unlike that of our opponents at a national level who believe in ratifying Kyoto, not withstanding the penalties it would impose on Australia, our policy is that we will achieve the greenhouse gas emission targets set by Kyoto but we won't do it at the price of accepting a penalty for Australian industry, which would be the case if we signed the Kyoto Protocol. So unless and until that protocol removals the potential penalties that would be imposed on a country like Australia the Federal Government, present Federal Government will not ratify the treaty, but we will continue to try very hard to achieve the emission target set by Kyoto and we are within striking distance of achieving those and many of the greenhouse abatement measures that we have introduced over the past few years are going to bring that about.
The only other thing I'd like to mention very briefly ladies and gentlemen is the overall strength and respect in which our country is viewed around the world at the present time. Governments I guess, particularly Australian Governments, have responsibilities in three areas. We need to have a society which is stable, we need to have social stability, we believe that the best Australia is the Australia where people feel they get a fair go, where people feel that if they work hard and they take advantage of opportunities they get reward for that and also a society that looks after people who through no fault of their own have fallen behind. I think we also want a society that is economically strong because unless you have a strong economy there's not a lot you can do. And it's the strongly performing nations of the world that are respected around the world. And I've seen the esteem in which Australia is held rise as our economic strength has gone on year after year. And of course we need, particularly in these times of legitimately heightened concern about international terrorism we do need to have strong policies in the area of national security. I don't think I can recall a time in which Australia has been held in greater regard around the world. We are seen as a strong performer economically, we are seen as a country that can do things and undoubtedly the best demonstration of that in recent years was the stunning success of the Sydney Olympic Games which put our country on display to the rest of the world in a friendly open welcoming fashion that was a revelation to many, not to us but certainly to many people who'd not experienced Australian hospitality before. And I think the other thing that has worked very much to Australia's credit is that we have been willing to take a stand on issues that confront us in the 21st century, issues of terrorism, issues that go to the security not only of our region but of other parts of the world.
It's a clich‚ now to say that we live in a globalised world environment, but as I've moved around here today I've had plenty of references to exchange rates, which are an expression of the impact of a globalised economy, not only on Australia but to the economy of this particular part of Australia and that's very understandable. The exchange rates as they vary affect people in different ways, some people like a higher dollar, some people like a lower dollar, my answer always is that the current level of the Australian dollar is about right. And I don't sort of vary from that no matter what the level might happen to be, in other words I don't comment on it. But it's an illustration that we do live in that globalised environment and therefore the rest of the world affects us now more than ever before, and the idea that we could roll ourselves up in a little ball and say look we're down here and we can close our eyes to what's happening the Middle East, close our eyes to what's happening in Europe or North America or China or Japan or Indonesia, if ever those days existed, and I think it's a long time since they seriously existed, they certainly don't exist now. And what affects the world, affects Australia and if Australia performs strongly and has a strong economy and is held in very high regard then that obviously is of enormous long term benefit to our country.
Finally ladies and gentlemen, can I say a word of very genuine commendation about your local Federal Member Paul Neville. Paul is a great agitator for the people of Hinkler, for the people of Gladstone, he's a person who is always up on his feet espousing the cause and the interests of central Queenslanders, he's always arguing the case for a better deal for Hinkler, sometimes he's successful, sometimes he deserves to be more successful, sometimes Ministers are just bloody unreasonable but overall can I tell you that he does a fantastic job as your local Federal Member and I'm very proud to count him as both a friend and a colleague and I'm delighted to be his guest here today and I wish all of you well and thank you very sincerely for your very generous and hospitable welcome.
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