Well thank you very much Mr Mayor for those very warm words of welcome, Stewart McArthur the Federal Member for Corangamite, ladies and gentlemen. It';s a great delight for me to be back in this part of Victoria, to be a guest of Stewart';s and so many of his constituents and so many representatives of the local Colac community and the surrounding district.
Visits such as this to regional centres of Australia are for me as Prime Minister an invaluable opportunity to keep in touch with and listen to the views of people who live outside the major population centres of our country. We are, as you know, a very heavily urbanised nation, but so much of the productive wealth and the innovation of our country comes from regional and rural areas of Australia. And without a proper understanding of their needs and without a proper understanding of the things that they regard as important, it is not possible to give effective government to Australia.
It';s fair to say that I speak to you at a time when the Australian economy, nationally speaking, generically speaking, has rarely been stronger. I don';t believe the Australian economy has seen in national terms the sort of conditions that we';re now enjoying, at any time in our history since World War II. We have very strong growth. For the first time since 1968 inflation is below three per cent and unemployment is below six per cent. The debt of $96 billion that we inherited in 1996 has been massively reduced so that Australia has probably the lowest, or close to the lowest debt levels of any national government in the industrialised world. We have very low interest rates and we have very strong levels of business investment. There will be many people in this room, particularly in small business and on the land, who remember what it was like to have interest rates of 17, 18, 19 per cent and bill rates of 21 or 22 per cent. And all I can say is I don';t know how you survived those sort of interest rates, and God forbid that those sort of interest rates should ever return because the greatest (inaudible) of prosperity in regional Australia is in fact the economic conditions that produce high interest rates.
We as a nation find it hard to deal with corrupted world markets. We are a small nation. We can argue and fight and cajole and advocate it in world economic and trade forums, but in the end the large trading blocs of the world in areas like agriculture do what they will without a great deal of regard for countries such as Australia. I';m very proud of the fact that we have one of the most efficient farm sectors in the world. It is not a heavily subsidised sector, particularly compared with the farming sectors of the European Union, Japan and the United States.
We have just completed a negotiation with the United States for a Free Trade Agreement. We didn';t get everything we wanted, but we got a lot that is going to be beneficial for many parts of the Australian economy. We did win some significant benefits for the dairy industry and the beef industry. We';ve won significant gains for our manufacturing industries and for our service industries. And I have not the slightest doubt that signing this Free Trade Agreement will lock the Australian economy into the fastest growing economy or the biggest economy the world has ever seen. And it can only be to the benefit of Australia as the years go by that we have a connection, a very strong connection, a freer trade connection, with what is the largest economy in the world. And the relevance of that connection is going to get stronger and more important for Australia as the years go by. The relevance and importance of the United States to Australia, both from a defence point of view, a strategic point of view and an economic point of view, is going to get stronger as time goes by.
That is not to say that our future lies only in a close partnership and alliance with the United States, but it is certainly the most important association that we have, and right at the moment it';s the worst time imaginable to be talking about putting a distance between ourselves and the United States. The world faces a major threat in relation to international terrorism. It';s a great cloud on the international horizon, and this is a time to stay close to our traditional friends. It';s not a time to gratuitously pick fault with them. And this is not a time to give in to the threats and intimidation of terrorist organisations. Things are difficult in Iraq. I know that our commitment to that military operation was criticised by many in Australia, but I believe that it was right and I believe that it is even more right that we stay there to finish the job. It is not the Australian way… it has never been the Australian way to cut and run. It has never been the Australian way to be intimidated by threats. The people who want us out of Iraq are the people who want to deny to Iraq a free and democratic future, and it';s very important that we stand together with our friends and our allies against that intimidation.
But as I said a moment ago, we haven';t invested all of our international relationships just with the United States. Over the last eight years we have built very important new markets in the Asia Pacific region. We have preserved the value of the great Japanese market and the Korean market, especially for our mineral exports. And in recent years, we have developed an extraordinarily close economic and trading partnership with China, the most populous country in the world. And just 18 months ago we signed the largest trade deal this country has ever signed in its history with a province of China for the sale of natural gas. And the potential of the Chinese market to this country is enormous, and it does give the lie to those who said it would not be possible to build an even closer relationship with the United States and also build a close relationship with the nations of Asia. We can have both and we will have both. We will have both of those relationships on terms that are positive and valuable for Australia and in terms that serve the Australian national interest.
The prosperity we have at the moment is no accident. It';s a result of some difficult decisions being taken a few years ago to get our budget back into balance. It';s a result of the reforms that we undertook to our taxation system and our industrial relations system. Economic reform can have short-term difficulties, and can I say very directly to this gathering, I am aware of some of the challenges that the dairy industry has faced and I am aware that the deregulatory changes to the dairy industry of Australia have had an uneven impact. Some sections of the dairy industry have done well out of it, others not so well. Many sections of the dairy industry continue to be affected by the drought. Many are worried, as I found out yesterday in the east Gippsland area, are worried about the potential threat of the withdrawal of water entitlements by State authorities in Victoria.
I am very conscious of the concern that so many landowners legitimately have about the withdrawal of their water entitlements. This is a very dry continent and one of the great national challenges of the future is to deal with that problem in a cooperative manner between the Commonwealth and the States. State Governments control property rights, which includes not only land rights, land entitlement rather, but also water entitlements. But we';re very conscious and we';re working very closely with the States to increase the flow of water into the Murray, but by the same token to respect the fact that if somebody has a property entitlement, that entitlement should not be taken away without proper compensation.
Now these are issues that must be worked through in a fair and balanced fashion between local industries and governments at both a state and a federal level and we also as a nation must preserve the right balance between development and care for the environment. The days are gone when concerns of the environment was a fringe radical issue. Everybody cares about the environment now, some of the most passionate environmentalists I';ve met are primary producers, are farmers who care about the quality of the soil that produces their wealth, and they worry about the conservation of it and they worry about the preservation of scarce water resources. We should not see an automatic conflict between those two concerns, we should see them working together to produce a more productive environment. But there are, as in all of these arguments, people who are at the periphery and at the extreme. The extreme position is not in Australia';s interest because it is anti-development. The sensible environmental position is in Australia';s interests because it supports sustainability of our natural resources and supports the further development of our country.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are a nation which like all other western nations is going through a very big demographic change. Our population is getting older, not getting older at the same rate as Japan and many of the countries of Europe, but certainly the demography of our nation has changed. And what is going to require a greater emphasis as time goes by on healthcare services, on aged care service and the Government is very conscience of that. That is why one of the things we did a few years ago was to provide more support for private health insurance because we regard that as very important in supporting not only private hospitals but also the choice that is involved and the capacity you have if you have your own private health insurance. I believe in a health system which has both a public component and a private component. I don';t believe the two should argue with each other.
I believe the two should complement each other and work together and one of the things we';ve done in recent months is to provide very significant strengthening to the Medicare system, our MedicarePlus package has provided extra payments to doctors for bulk billing, to cardholders and to children under 16. We';ve introduced for the first time a Medicare safety net, which says that if you';re a family and your out of pocket expenses go over $300 a year the most families on modest to middle incomes you get 80 per cent of that back after it goes over $300 and for the rest you get 80 per cent back when it goes over $700 a year. So what that does is to provide a peace of mind, a security against unexpectedly large medical expenses and we';ve also for the first time introduced an entitlement for some of the allied health professionals such as physiotherapists and podiatrists for the treatment they provide. And in addition to that and very importantly to rural areas we are adopting measures that are going to get hundreds of more doctors and practice nurses into areas of workforce shortage. I find as I go around Australia that people complain to me, if they have concerns, they complain to me most about the unavailability of doctors rather than issues relating to bulk billing. But the two of them are related because you find as work around Australia that where there are low levels of bulk billing there';s a big shortage of doctors and where there are high levels of bulk billing you have not an oversupply of doctors but you have an adequate supply. And as so often is the case you have to find a solution that matches the market forces, you have to bring the supply of doctors up and as a result that will have an affect on the levels of bulk billing.
But our major changes to Medicare will further strengthen it. I had the opportunity to launch the Gippsland cancer centre appeal in Traralgon yesterday and this is an appeal to which the Victorian Government has contributed $11 million, we';ve contributed $10 million and the local community is being asked to contribute $3.5 million. The point I made in my address yesterday is one I would like to make again today and that for all the weaknesses there obviously are in our health system, and all the improvements that we could obviously make and are making, you shouldn';t lose sight of the fact that compared to the health systems of so many other countries with which it is reasonable to make comparison, Australia has a very strong and very effective health system and it';s very important that we don';t lose sight of that and we don';t denigrate by the constant rather overly partisan debate on health, we don';t denigrate the extraordinary achievements and extraordinary contributions of our doctors and our other health professions.
There are just two other things that I wanted to say, ladies and gentlemen: I wanted to commend to you in the strongest possible terms the work that Stewart McArthur does as your Federal Member. Stewart has been a colleague and friend of mine now for over 20 years. He came into the parliament in 1984 to succeed Tony Street as the Member for Corangamite. Stewart is a great believer in long term solutions to difficult issues. He';s never been a person who';s always taken the short cut and said do what';s instantaneously popular and forget about the year after next. There';s a great temptation in politics to do that. Great sensation to think, well, the only thing that matters is to buy off the immediate area of discontent and hang the longer-term consequences.
One of the reasons why Australia is now in a very strong economic position is that a whole group of people in and part of the government over the last eight years have not just taken the instantaneously popular position, we';ve argued very hard that this country needed some long term reform and we';ve faced a few difficult battles. Nobody thought as we went back a few years ago that reforming the tax system was easy.
It wasn';t very popular, I can assure you. It was very unpopular in the short term. But now people come up to me and say, well I don';t know what all the debate what about. They';ve moved on and it';s made a contribution to the overall strength of the economy. That';s not to say that everybody agrees with it. But they recognise in the long run that it was a change that had to be undertaken and Stewart has been part of a group of people who have argued for those things.
There is no stronger supporter of the need to do something about our industrial relations system. One of the things that I am very proud that my Government has been able to do is to reform the Australian waterfront. I can remember going around Australia when I was in Opposition and people would come to me and say, “if you blokes ever get back into Government, will you please do something about tackling the power of the maritime unions on the Australian waterfront” and we did that in 1998. It was pretty difficult. There were a lot of people who criticised it. There were a lot of people who cut and run who shouldn';t have cut and run. We stuck to our guns and as a result we now have a productivity level in the Australian waterfront that was undreamt of 10 years ago.
The hourly container rate ten years ago was something like 16 or 17 and we set ourselves what then seemed to be the unimaginable target of 25. It';s now, I think, 27.5 and all the stories that used to be told about the inefficiency of the Australian waterfront are now part of history. I used to go overseas and visit particularly nations in Asia and they';d say, “well, we like buying from Australia, we like doing business with Australia. But gee, we worry about those maritime unions, the wharfies, they get control of things.” There used to be a story told, an old lady was so much apart of the culture of this country that nothing happened if it happened if it had to go through the wharfs.
There was a dear old lady in Queensland who was warned about a cyclone coming to her town. She had to take care and she said to her son, don';t worry about it son. The wharfies won';t let it land. And it was systematic of the view that people took about the inefficiencies of the Australian waterfront and the point of all of that story is that Stewart McArthur was one of those people who';s argued very, very strongly all the time he';s been in politics that we had to look to the long term solutions. Now perhaps, it';s because he';s a farmer and he understands that it is about the long term. You are going to have a lot of short term bumps and it';s going to be very, very difficult and I think he';s done a sterling job as your representative and I';m very proud to call him a friend and a very close colleague.
And the final thing that I say to all of you is we are as a nation strong. We';re strong economically. We have a great sense of national unity. Our nation is warmly regarded and respected around the world. We';re seen as the country that stands up for what it believes in. We';re seen as a country that can run great international evens such as the Olympic Games, the Rugby World Cup and soon, here in Victoria, in Melbourne – the Commonwealth Games in 2006.
The word around is that if you want a great sporting event run, get the Australians to do it. They';re better than anybody else and I think they are and I won';t get much argument about that in this particular gathering. But ladies and gentlemen, we';ve achieved all of these things not by accident. We';ve achieved it because over the years some difficult decisions have been taken. Governments have been willing to go out and argue the case for reform and we should assume that it will happen no matter who';s in charge. And you can';t take our future for granted, we can only preserve it as it is by continuing to follow the right policies. And if we experiment with policies of high interest rates, of going back into debt, of borrowing money that we may not be able to pay, we';ll very quickly lose the stability and the strength and the sense of purpose that we have. And it';s pretty, apart from that, I think it';s very important that Stewart be returned. He';s your local member and whenever you an opportunity to make a decision on that, that we get a good opportunity to continue.
But ladies and gentlemen, it';s always a great pleasure to meet a group of Australians in their own community. I find it the most re-invigorating, refreshing, renewing part of the job that I have. I never tire of it, I greet it with great enthusiasm and thank you most warmly for receiving me this morning.
Thank you.
[ends]