Thank you very much Ross, ladies and gentlemen. It's great to be back in Parramatta, particularly because you have an absolutely fantastic Federal Member of Parliament in Ross Cameron.
As a Sydney boy, I have no strangeness with Parramatta. The area does represent a marvellous cross section of post World War II Australia. It is an area that has grown and changed and developed enormously over the last 25 years. And if a statistic can sum up a change, nothing sums up the change that has come across this part of Sydney over the last eight and a half years than Ross reminding all of you that in 1996 the unemployment rate was 13 per cent and now it has fallen to six per cent. That is a fantastic achievement because what it reminds us all of is that economic progress and economic success is not an end in itself. Unless it has a human dividend, unless at the end of the process you can point to the lives of people having been improved or strengthened or enriched, then economic policy has no meaning. And the most important thing that I hope that we can point to in relation to our economic stewardship of Australia has been the human dividend that is involved.
But not only is Parramatta an area that has changed and become far more vibrant over the last 25 years, it's of course an area that has on display the enormous choices and the enormous diversity of modern Australia. I was welcomed by a large number of school students when I arrived this morning. One of the things that this Government believes in very strongly is diversity and choice when it comes to education. There is a lot of mythology about education funding. There are a lot of people who falsely claim that my Government neglects the funding of government schools to the benefit of independent schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are 68 per cent of Australian children who are educated, as I was for the whole of my school career, in a government school, and yet those schools attract 76 per cent of funding at all levels. Those who attack our policies wrongly compare direct Federal Government funding of government schools with direct Federal Government funding of independent schools, without acknowledging that every time the New South Wales Government spends a dollar on a public school in this state, 44 cents of that dollar has come from the Goods and Services Tax or from direct Commonwealth programmes.
We support all schools. We support, most importantly, the right of Australian parents to decide where their children will be educated, and our aim is to have high standards in all schools. Our aim, as Brendan Nelson has demonstrated with his new policy of a $700 parental voucher to help those children who are assessed as having poor literacy and numeracy skills, our aim is to lift up the standards of all schools so that every child who leaves a school can aspire to do what their heart would want them to do, to choose the career that they want and to have an opportunity of a rewarding and fulfilling career. So whether that child is educated in a government school, a Catholic school, an Islamic school, a Christian school, whatever school - it matters not. What matters is the equality of opportunity that those children should be able to enjoy when they leave school.
Now this nation over the last eight and a half years has undergone significant change. Our economy is a lot stronger, our reputation around the world is higher, our friendliness and openness as a people has been marvellously on display through two great international sporting events - of course the now famous Sydney Olympic Games of the year 2000 and more recently the Rugby World Cup which was such an enormous success and which put Australia once again on display. And I find as I go around the world, and I'll have an opportunity next week when I go to the United States and briefly to Europe, I'll find again what I found before as I've travelled as Prime Minister, that Australia is now seen very much as a nation that matters and as a nation that earns respect. This is not only because of the strength of our economy. It's also because we are a nation that is prepared to stand up for what we believe in, even though that cause may be unpopular, even though in the medium term it may not be attracting as much support as we would like.
I have found in public life that there is not always a direct link between people supporting you and people agreeing with you. In the end if you have a consistency, in the end if you continue to argue for and to fight for things that you believe in, even though they may go in and out of favour over time, and I can think of some issues that were very popular with the public a few years ago when I supported them, and then they became very unpopular, and now they're sort of halfway between. That happens with a lot of issues. But what matters in the end is that if you believe in something, you've got to be prepared to argue it and you've got to be prepared to support it.
Now I believe in a lot of things in public life. I believe in freedom of choice in education. I believe in having a health system that is not dominated either by the private side or by the public side, a health system which brings together the best elements of both. Now there's been a lot of debate about hospitals and health systems in Australia and that will go on, and that's properly part of the ongoing political debate. But we do ourselves an enormous disservice as a country if we imagined that for all its weaknesses, this country doesn't have a health system which is infinitely better than those of most other countries.
For all its faults, we do have a very good health system. And we've set about strengthening Medicare. We've begun to see the benefits of those changes. We saw last week a significant increase, it's early days yet, in the levels of bulk billing. We've maintained our very strong support for private health insurance. We certainly won't be withdrawing that support because we need both. And we've also provided for the first time a very valuable safety net, and that means that all of the families of Australia, if their out of hospital, out of pocket expenses go beyond a certain level, they'll get 80 per cent of the excess reimbursed to them so that the worry of the crippling cost of a major illness or a major accident on a family is going to be removed. Now this is a very important strengthening of the Medicare system and it's very important for families, very very important indeed, because we all know as parents, particularly when our children are young, the worry of a sudden unexpected illness and the impact that can have not just on any expenses that you might have to pay to your GP if you don't have bulk billing, but if you've got to go and see a specialist, if you've got to get an x-ray, you've got to get a blood test - all of those things which are part and parcel of the treatment of an illness of your child or of yourself. All of those things are going to be protected and supported by this new safety net, and I'm very proud of that as an extremely important innovation in our health system.
Now these things are important and so of course are the benefits that were announced in the most recent Budget. When you have a strong budget position, when you've paid off your country's debts - I mean Australia has the lowest, just about the lowest national debt ratio of any developed country in the world - what is left over from that ought to be returned, as we did in the last Budget, to Australian families. And we ought to be providing taxation relief for people, particularly those people who work some overtime, who are going into higher taxation brackets under the present arrangements.
There seems to be a strange notion in some circles that if you earn fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year, you've suddenly become a rich man or a rich woman. I mean the average full time male wage in Australia for somebody who works full time is $51,000 and yet under the present income tax scales, which we are changing with effect from the 1st of July, if you get to $52,000 you start paying 42 cents in the dollar on your extra income. Now that's madness. It really is. And it's destructive of incentive. And those sort of rates cut in at much lower levels in Australia than they do in countries with which it's fair to make comparison. And what we are trying to do is to, and what we will do as a result of this Budget, is to have a situation where somebody can go from an income of $21,600 a year through to an income of $63,000 a year without paying more than 30 cents in the dollar on any part of that income. Now that is a very important taxation reform and it's designed to give people incentive, and it's designed to give people incentive in parts of Australia such as Parramatta, but of course as well all around the country. Now those things are possible because the economic management of this country over the last eight and a half years has been successful.
When I became Prime Minister, I set myself three broad goals. I wanted this country to be secure. I wanted it to have strong defences, to have strong alliances and steadfast friends on whom we could rely in times of need. I wanted it to have economic strength. I wanted it to have an economy of which we could be proud and would generate jobs and generate investment and create small businesses and keep interest rates down and return the benefits of that strong economy to families. I also wanted Australia to be socially cohesive. I wanted this country to be an example to the world of religious tolerance, of understanding and of diversity, under the umbrella of an overriding commitment to the fundamental values of Australia.
I believe, as we look back over the last few years, we can say that those goals have been achieved. We are a cohesive country. We have citizens from 140 nations in the world that live in harmony. We are Australians before we are anybody else. We don't ask people born in other parts of the world to forget their homeland. There is always a place in your heart for the country in which you were born, and that is only human. And as somebody who is, I guess, a fourth generation Australian, I can understand how somebody born in another country in the world will always in the corner of their heart have a special feeling for that country, and nobody ever asks you to give that up. All that is ever asked of all of us is to share together an overriding passion for this country, and that is what we have been able to do.
We treat religious beliefs in this country on a basis of tolerance. We are of course predominantly a society instructed by the Judeo-Christian ethic, but that does not alter in any way our total acceptance of people with different religious values. And it's important for me again to affirm that at a time of international difficulty, that the people in this nation of Islamic faith are entitled to be treated like the rest of the community on the basis of total acceptance, of total tolerance and of total respect and of total dignity. We are in so many of those things an example to the rest of the world. I know I probably won't get any argument in an Australian audience, but we do it rather better than most and I think we have achieved a balance in relation to these things that perhaps may have been eluding us a few years ago, that we've certainly received, I think we have enjoyed that balance.
The last thing I want to say is that many of the things I've spoken of today relate to what we have achieved and to where we are, but there is much to be done. There is much to be done about the challenges of our environment. There is much to be done about the importance of properly harnessing to the benefit of all of the Australian people, the great natural resources we have, particularly our energy resources. And on both of those issues, I'll be having something more to say of significance in the weeks ahead. But this country has extraordinary opportunities. It is a remarkably blessed country, it's a remarkably fortunate country, but it's also a country that has made its own luck. Every nation has an element of luck, but every nation has to make its own luck. And Australians working together, Australians of all ages over the last decade or more have contributed to the building of a nation of which all of us can be immensely proud.
And my last remark is about Ross Cameron. I said at the beginning what a great privilege it was to be in his electorate and what a fantastic local Member he was. I mean that because Ross is not only a good local Member in the sense of responding to the concerns of his constituents, but he's also somebody who can explain it very well. There aren't many people in the parliamentary party who can express how he feels quite as well as Ross. He can certainly, to use that old expression, charm the birds off the trees with his silver tongue. I mean I've seen him some mornings on that... I don't know how many of you watch that Insiders programme on the ABC, but I suppose it's just the political junkies who do it and a few more, but you know I see him some mornings in that little segment where the politicians speak for 50 seconds. I mean he'll give a little presentation and I'll turn around to my wife and I say gee I hadn't realised we were as good as that. And he's just very, very effective. And that's important because having somebody like that represent you in federal parliament makes a difference. It's good to have somebody who is connected with the concerns, and Ross is, but it's doubly good to have somebody who is not only connected with the concerns and reflects the concerns, but also somebody who has that great gift of articulating and advocating how people feel and what people are concerned about.
My friends, it's great to be alive in Australia in 2004. It is a fantastic place. It's great to have the privilege of seeing you for a few moments this morning, of thanking the contribution that all of you make to a local community. The cement that holds Australia together is the volunteer spirit of all of the community organisations. So many are represented here this morning. Without the volunteers, without the local community groups, we would be a poorer society and a far less well endowed society. I thank you for the contribution you make to our country and I thank you very warmly for having me as your guest this morning.