Well thank you very much Teresa, other very distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Can I first of all thank the Southern Cross Catholic College for the hospitality that it is extending to all of us today, the opportunity for me to meet you and to exchange a few thoughts with people from all over the communities that make up the electorate of Petrie.
Can I start by congratulating your local girl, Teresa Gambaro, on her recent promotion as Parliamentary Secretary. I thought it was a very good appointment, and neither she nor I is going to argue with that, and I don't think many people in this room will either. She has worked extremely hard and she has been a very effective local Member, and I think she will bring a particular touch to that responsibility that she has newly acquired. And may I also take the opportunity in passing of saying this - that Teresa joins a growing list of women at high level in the Federal Government. I should remind you that since Federation in 1901, there have only been nine women who have been full members of the Federal Cabinet, and three of those nine are in the current Federal Cabinet, so it's an indication... now I've never been a person who has believed in quotas, and not many women I know believe in special rules, and I'm making the point that that outcome, and there should be even more, has been based not on some kind of quota, but on the only principle that should govern it, and that is the merit principle.
We're meeting here today in a Catholic College, and it reminds me, and if I may start my remarks, it reminds me of the importance of choice in education. Nothing is more important to the future of this country than a sound education system because it's something that endures year in and year out. So I reminded a similar audience in Mal Brough's electorate this morning, I am proudly a product of the state education system in New South Wales. I received a very good education system at Canterbury Boys High School and my wife went to Sydney Girls High and we're very much, both of us, part of the state education system in New South Wales.
But as a parent, I exercised choice at a secondary level in relation to my children concerning their schooling. And what I want as Prime Minister and what we have delivered and what we will continue to deliver if we continue to be the government of this country, we'll continue to deliver a high quality education system that involves the absolute principle of parental choice. And may I say to those people, and there are many, but I hope a dwindling number, who attack the idea that we have Catholic and independent schools as well as having government schools, can I remind every one of them that when a parent makes a choice to send their child to a Catholic or independent school, they save the Australian taxpayer not less than $3,000 a year per child who is sent to an independent school. And therefore this idea that in some way the state education system is being robbed of money because governments provide assistance for parents at Catholic and independent schools couldn't be further from the truth.
Sixty-eight per cent of Australian school children attend Catholic and independent schools and those schools... I'm sorry, 68 per cent of Australian school children attend government schools, and those government schools attract 76 per cent of all government funding that goes to schools throughout Australia. Now in all of these debates you're subjected to a barrage of statistics and a great pile of arguments, but just remember those two figures - every time a child goes to a non-government school, the taxpayer is saved on average $3,000 a child a year; 68 per cent of children go to government schools and those government schools attract 76 per cent of all government funding.
So therefore this argument that there is something unfair or wrong and damaging to the government education system by having independent schools couldn't be further from the truth. And I'm very proud of the fact that we have underwritten parental choice, that there are 300 more independent schools operating in Australia in the eight and a half years that I have been Prime Minister, and almost all of those independent schools are low fee schools. They're not schools charging 14 and 15 thousand dollars a year. They're schools that are charging $2500, $3000, $3500, $4000, $5000 a year in fees. That is where the expansion of the independent school sector has occurred. There is nothing elitist or privileged about those fee levels and indeed it's a cardinal principle of freedom of choice in this country that parents should have the right, and above the government, above anybody else, of deciding the nature and the quality of the education that their children should receive.
Teresa has been kind enough to speak earlier of the journey that we have travelled over the last eight and a half years and there were some, as she rightly said, there were many things that I would never have dreamt back in March of 1996 that I would encounter as Prime Minister. I would never have dreamt that there would be an attack on the 11th of September 2001. I would never have thought that it would have become necessary for us to intervene militarily in East Timor. I would never have dreamt that there would be an attack that would claim the lives of 88 Australians in Bali in October of 2002.
I don't think many people would have dreamt that side by side with building an ever closer relationship with the United States, which is so important to our security and economic future, that we would also build a wonderful economic partnership with China. And I count it as one of the great achievements of the last eight and a half years that we've been able not only to develop that very close relationship with the United States and build on it, and it's so important and we shall never forget the role that the United States played in the defence of Australia in the dark days of World War II, but also side by side with that we've been able to build this association with China. China is now our third largest export destination, and it's a country of growing significance to Australia, a country of more than a billion people with a very fast growing economy, and the natural gas contract we signed with China 18 months ago is just the beginning of what will grow to be one of the great economic relationships and partnerships that this country has. And it's a reminder that a nation like Australia has to interact with all parts of the world.
The Asian Pacific region is very important to us and we have special linkages with countries like China and Japan and Korea and Indonesia and Malaysia and Thailand. We've just signed a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand, we signed one a few years ago with Singapore, and we have to work very hard in building and nurturing our relationship with Indonesia. But we are not a country that's just locked in to the Asian Pacific region. We are a nation of European origin and we share in common with Britain and Ireland in particular, but also many other countries of Europe such as Italy and Greece and the nations of eastern Europe, we share very very strong historical and ethnic ties. And we'll always have that association, and people who say that those links are irrelevant to Australia's future don't understand how much the world has shrunk. They don't understand that these days communications are such as to demolish to a very large extent the relevance that geography once held. And no nation should ever be required to make a choice between its history and its geography.
So we are a country that uniquely of European origin, we're here in our part of the world, the Asian Pacific part, we have great historic links with the nations of Europe, and of course we have a very strong history and strategic and security link with the people of north America. And that puts Australia in a very special position, and it's a position I believe of great privilege and of great advantage.
And I often do, as borrowing a question that Ronald Reagan asked of people in 1984, I will often say to audiences - do you believe Australia is a stronger, more respected, more economically sound, more secure country now than what it was eight and a half years ago? And that is a relevant question to ask. Now some people will say no, and I acknowledge that I have my many critics. Nobody who goes into public life and becomes Prime Minister of this country wins the support of everybody. You can't expect that. And I respect the fact that in a great democracy such as Australia, there is a solid percentage of the Australian population that really can't stand the sight of me, and they don't agree with anything that I've done - virtually nothing that I've done. They might agree with me when I barrack for the Wallabies, they might agree with me when I go and... when I cheered our Olympic athletes on in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, but even then they'd have some reservations about why I was there every day, and so they would carry on. But that's as it should be in a democracy.
But at the end of the day, one goes into public life to try and change things for the better. At the end of the day, you have to take a stand. There is no point in trying to be all things to all men. You can't please everybody all of the time. And what I have tried to do over the last eight and a half years is to provide this country with two great underpinnings. I've wanted to provide it with economic security and I've wanted to provide it with national security, they're the two things, because you really can't do anything else. If you don't have a secure, well defended country, you are constantly at risk, and if you don't have a strong, growing economy, there are so many other things that you can't achieve.
Now we've paid off a lot of national debt since we've been the government. In fact we've paid off about $70 billion. And when I say that, some people say there he goes again. He's obsessed with economic statistics. He never stops talking about them. But can I tell you why paying off that debt is important. As a result of paying it off, we now as a nation pay on average $5.5 billion less a year in interest payments. And do you know where those interest payments have gone? They haven't gone into my pocket, they haven't gone into Peter Costello's pocket, they've actually gone into things, terrible things, like extra funding for roads, extra funding for Medicare, extra funding for education, extra funding for defence, extra funding for our intelligence services, and there has also been some extra funding for taxation relief and for family benefits and also for baby bonuses. Now the point of that story is obvious - that there is a human dividend out of good economic policy. I mean I'm not interested in getting a purple certificate from an international financial institution saying the Australian Prime Minister runs a good economy. I mean I don't mind if people say that, but that's not the end of the... that's not the point of the exercise. The point of running an economy well is to be in a position to provide a human dividend, and the human dividend is a greater investment in all of those things. That's what it is.
And the other great human dividend is that more people are in work. We now have for the first time since 1968, we have unemployment below six per cent and we have inflation below three per cent. That's the first time we've had those... that golden double, I call it, since 1968. So when people say to you oh look, he only ever talks about the economy - wrong, I don't only ever talk about the economy, but when I talk about the economy, I talk about the human side of it, what it means, and you can't divorce economic security from personal and family security. Families are put under great strain. We all know from our own experiences. Even in the most united and happiest of households, you have your difficult periods and everybody has to, you know, make their own personal contribution, and having a successful family life and a happy marriage and bringing up children and everything, it's always a challenge, but it's the most rewarding thing that you can have in life - far, far better than any other experience that you can possibly have in life. But we all know from that experience that when there are financial challenges, there are economic challenges, the personal relationship is always put under greater strain. And if you can... I mean it's not the role of the government to tell parents how to raise their children. That's the role of parents. But it is the role and the obligation and the responsibility of government to create the right economic and social environment in which parents can be given a fair go and the right conditions to raise their children.
So, my friends, there is a very big linkage between those two things and I think it is so important that we keep that in mind. As I look around this room, I think of how many gatherings of this kind that I go to and I never tire of them because they are a refreshing experience of interaction with the Australian public, with my fellow Australians. And this is the hall of a Catholic College. Tomorrow I might go to an RSL hall, I might go to a Leagues Club hall or club room next week, I might go to an AFL one the following week or a soccer one the week after, and so the list goes on. I was in South Australia a couple of weeks ago and I went to about three or four gatherings, all held at AFL football clubs in Adelaide. But the bond that brings people from the Australian community together, that bond is the same all over the country, and one of the great strengths of this country is our sense of community and our sense of working together. And because we are a relatively classless society, we come together very easily and when we've got a challenge, we rise to that challenge and we do it very effectively. And it's one of the great and beautiful strengths that the Australian people have - this ease of interaction with one another. And I just find the experience every time of once again meeting people from schools, from RSL clubs, from all the others - from sporting organisations, community organisations, people who are making a daily contribution, most of them on a volunteer basis, they are the great national cement that this country has.
So, my friends, I'm delighted to be here. I'm delighted to say what a magnificent local Member you have in Teresa Gambaro. She is a wonderful, warm hearted, hard working person. She is somebody who tells a great part of the Australian story - the daughter of immigrants, somebody who is proudly Australian but also affectionately Italian, somebody who is... and that's how it should be. That's how it should be. You should never ask anybody to forget the country that was first in their heart. That is human. I mean I feel that very much as a fifth generation Australian and I can equally respect that Australians whose forebears came here a little later can feel a special affection for another country. But she's a great member of my team. And people are kind enough to talk about the Howard Government, but it's not really just the Howard Government. It's a team. And we've been effective, I hope, over the last eight and a half years because we're a reasonably good team, and I've got a lot of terrific colleagues and I'm glad very much to have the opportunity of adding Teresa to the ranks as a Parliamentary Secretary. She'll do a fantastic job and the electorate of Petrie willing, she'll continue to represent you after the next election.
Thank you very, very much for having me.
[ends]